


Fallout 3: Early Dismissal

by AceSparkleGirl, covertCalligrapher



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: F/M, High School AU, Illustrated, Murder, Slow Build, minor quest reordering, moral fluxuation, more characters as the story progresses - Freeform, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 18:14:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 47,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2477720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceSparkleGirl/pseuds/AceSparkleGirl, https://archiveofourown.org/users/covertCalligrapher/pseuds/covertCalligrapher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Ya know, we never did graduate high school," Butch said, sitting with his legs crossed on the couch. His jacket was beat to hell and riddled with patched bullet holes and he was worrying about high school.</p><p>D looked at him sideways for a moment. "Butch, people out here don't even have high school."</p><p>"I guess you're right," he replied with a snort. "Your old man sure did ride your case about it, though."</p><p>D sat down next to him, a cloud of dust kicking up and sticking to her jacket. She shrugged at him, a smile burning brightly on her face. "He never went to high school, he can't say shit."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Look At Me, I'm Darling D

**Chapter 1: Look at Me, I'm Darling D**

“I’m too old for this shit, kid, and you’re not exactly my _style_ ,” the old raider protested from his stool.

The kid sat at the bar to his left, relaxed and easy like she’d been there her whole life. Her scoff at the weathered man was swallowed by the thick dust that permeated everything in the stuffy room. She hopped down from her stool, a cloud of that dust kicking up as she landed on her heavy boots.

“Jericho, now’s your chance to prove that you’re not just an old man,” she said as she adjusted the collar of the thick leather jacket that swallowed her. The serpent on the back twisted menacingly as she turned to face him. “Don’t you ever want to make up for being a piece of shit?”

He snorted and downed the glass of whiskey he’d been nursing since she had found him sitting there trying to drown himself. “I never did anything to feel bad about.”

“And that’s what makes you a piece of shit,” she stated shortly with a swift kick to his stool. He might have said something else to her, or he might have told her to get out of his face before he called the Sheriff, but she didn’t give him the chance. With a few long strides, she was out of the bar and into the harsh sunlight.

Delia stomped down the rattling gangway, putting as much space between her Jericho as she was able to. A man at the pool of water in the center of the town caught her eye, but before he can summon her to drink the poisoned water of the town, she escaped. The thin metal jingled as she ran up it, and the planks shook as she opened the door to her house and slammed it shut behind her.

The robot floated over to her and asked her how her day had been.

She waved it away with a flick of her wrist, her hands fiddling with the Pip-boy strapped to her arm. “It’s been great Wadsworth, go to your charger.”

“Certainly, Madam, though I must inquire as to your physical well being. My sensors indicate abnormally high stress levels and might I suggest--”

“Wadsworth, not right now, just go to your charger,” she snapped. The robot apologized and puttered away, leaving D. She stomped up the staircase and fell down onto her bed, trying to ignore the cloud of dust that she’d kicked up.

She lied there and counted to thirty before restlessness overcame her. A few turns of the dial and the Pip-boy’s radio tuned and grated out the message that had been playing nonstop for the past three days.

_This is an automated distress message from Gate-Tec: Commune 101. Message begins: It feels like you left home a long time ago, but I know you're still out there. I just hope you're still alive to hear this. Things got worse after you left. My father's gone mad with power. If you can hear this, please stop looking for your dad and help stop mine. I changed the door password to my name. If you're hearing this, and if you still care enough to help me, you should remember it. Message repeats:_

D closed her eyes and breathed in deeply through her nose before disengaging the seals on the piece of tech and throwing it across the room with an angry shout. She left it there, scratching at the marks it left on her arm as the message played inside her skull and scrolled behind her eyes. She could have probably recited it in her sleep, and for the past three days, her dreams had been of nothing but returning to that dome in the middle of all those soldier pines and finding it in pieces. The thought of finding everyone either alive and enraged, or dead and buried set her to shivering.

She _couldn’t_ stop looking for her father, she _needed_ to find him. If she never did, the past two months would have been wasted and she escaped her safe electrified cage for nothing. All of this would have been so useless if he just disappeared. People go missing in the wasteland all the time, how could her father be any different?

She would never think he was dead, though, he couldn’t have gone through all that trouble just to stumble out here and die. He had been born and raised out here, and so had she. Maybe not raised, but she _had_ been born out here, apparantly. If she wasn’t dead yet, then neither was he, she was sure of that.

Sleep took her fitfully and she awoke late at night to the sound of Three Dog screaming from her Pip-boy. With a curse, she rose from bed and hit the radio until it stopped and she could slide it back on in silence. She reengaged the seals and nerve ports on it, wincing as it tuned itself to her body. Standing in silence, the metal shack was almost peaceful, if not a bit cold. Her muscles ached from sleeping in her armor and her eyes pounded. A hand strayed to her hair and nearly got stuck there, her class ring getting caught in the snarls of her hair. Dried leaves and pine needles scraped against the metal roof, skittering along with the thin whistles of the chilly October air.

D tuned the radio again and let it play, her childhood friend’s words reverberating around the metal walls. She _had_ to go and save them. She picked up her bag, her weapons and necessities bouncing against each other as she sprinted to leave the gated community she had so recently begun to call home. Dust and needles spat up and crunched under her feet, the enormous pines overcasting nearly everything. The sun would have been blocked, had it been out.

She wandered closer to the dome through the thin forest. The radio signal grew clearer with each step towards where she _knew_ that gate was. She passed an old sonic emitter disguised as a tree. Perhaps when Commune 101 had been built, the fake tree had blended more easily. Two hundred years had the emitter tower looking too thin and sparse to blend in with the enormous trunks of the conifers surrounding it.

Too soon, she stumbled up to the seven foot gear, _101_ written in cracked and fading paint. All trepidation falling away, she brought up the control panel and keyed in _Amata_ , half hoping it had all been fake. Maybe it had been a prank and she could just leave and get on with her life.

True to form, however, the gear slid aside and the line of pines thickened considerably inside. The paths of the inner forest were long and twisting, and D has to stop every few trees and mark them. After a few moments she had begun to realize how quiet it was inside the dome, even when the sky was simulating an unsettlingly starless night. At least she wasn’t like to get blasted by the sonic emitters. No simulated birds, rustling leaves, or wild animals meant all of the emitters were powered down. With luck, even the electric fence will be turned off and she won’t get shocked into the next century.

She walked slowly, careful not to trip over any rocks sticking from the ground. D watched her feet as she walked, her sense of something wrong growing as she crunched over the dry dirt and pebbles.

 _Dry dirt_ , she thought to herself. _No pine needles, no rain, no roots sticking out of the ground_. Her synthetic paradise was not nearly as seamless as it had been before she knew that trees shed and pulled their roots up. It was all fake, but it seemed so real.

She stopped to look at her surroundings, taking in the fake trees, the silent branches, and the rainless sky. Her knife came out of her boot and she carved a little cross into the trunk of the tree to her right, so she wouldn’t get lost. The tip of it scraped lightly over the metal core of the trunk and she’s reminded again of how _unreal_ this all is. The feeling of uneasiness overtook her again and she checked on the radio again just to make sure Amata’s distress signal was still there.

D left it on softly until the tall chain link fence separating the synthetic forest and the houses came into view. Amata’s tinned voice shut off and D considered the fence, wondering if it was still powered up. The emitters and sound clips were off, but the fence was most likely still very live. She leaned in closely and heard an almost imperceptible thrumming.

Deciding to err on the side of caution, D bent over and scooped up a few pebbles. She carefully brushed the dirt off before popping three in her mouth and rolling them around until they’re covered in saliva. She spit them into the palm of her hand and dropped them onto the fence, careful not to touch the metal to her skin. The rocks fell away with a loud _pop_ and she sighed. _Nothing is ever easy._

A border pine had branches that extended over the fence along with a thick trunk dotted with holes and knots. D scrambled up it, back aching and calves straining as she hauled herself and all of her stuff upwards of 20 feet. Up the trunk, along the thin spider branches that would have been too weak to bear her weight had they been _real_ , and onto the roof of one of the border houses. She landed with a heavier _thump_ than she had meant to, and froze. Heart hammering against her ribs, she prayed no one was inside to hear her.

She counted to ten, waiting for someone to see her and for her heart to stop pounding. When the night remained just as silent as it had been before, she carefully slid off the roof and onto the grass. A few blades came up as she walked over it to the front gate of the compound. It rustled softly underfoot and the air smelled like crushed grass and wet dirt, good smells that reminded Delia of her childhood. Reminders that not everything in 101 was terrible.

At the front gate, two bodies were laid out and rotting. The stench upon approach was nearly too much and Delia pulled her neck scarf up over her face so she didn’t retch. Prickles of fear and disgust crawled up her back as she recognized one of the desiccated faces. She nudged the other with her boot, flipping it over. It was loose-limbed and rotting, pieces falling off as she bent down to find out _who_. The face was almost unrecognizable, but the wispy black hair told her everything.

 _“Poor Jim_ ,” she whispered softly as rolled him back over.

She stood and walked briskly from where the corpses lied and went to find if Amata was even still alive.

* * *

 

“Holy shit, it’s _you!”_ a booming voice called out to her. D froze and raised her fists, ready to take out her anxiety on _something_.

She turned towards him as he puffed over to her, squinting through the starless night. “Officer Armstrong?”

“Kid, I almost didn’t recognize you, all that dirt and shit all over your face,” he said, lifting the visor on his riot gear.

“Yeah, it’s pretty dusty out there,” she said, straightening up and relaxing. _No danger here; not yet, anyway._

“I don’t know what you’re doing here, but we’re not exactly in our best shape right now,” he said, gesturing around.

D snorted, a hand going up to rub at the sunburn on the back of her neck. “Really? Looks fine to me, someone just forgot to turn on the sky is all.”

“The stars aren’t out tonight,” he replied with a shrug. “Did you find your dad out there?”

“Not yet,” she said stiffly, wanting this conversation to just end. “I have to clean up another mess, you know?”

He ignored her jab. “Look, Delia, I should take you to the Overseer, but I’m not going to.”

“That’s very kind of you, officer.”

“Don’t be a piece of shit.” He stood up straighter, an air of dignity falling off of him. “Honestly, you being here can’t make anything worse.”

D swallowed tightly and left him with a terse goodbye, stomping away without really knowing where she was going. After she’d been wandering for what felt like an eternity around the carefully planned neighborhood, she reflected that perhaps she should have asked for directions or something. Maybe not “where is Amata and all the other people who are sick of the Overseer’s shit,” but just _something_.

Between two houses, a small shadow darted by. Hard-won instinct and adrenaline kicked in and D slammed her fist into the side of one of the houses, narrowly avoiding destroying the whip-thin boy whose head had just been where her fist was embedded in the wall.

D braced her foot on the wall and yanked her fist free, the pneumatic gauntlet clicking as she shook it out.

“Holy shit, _D_ ,” Freddie Gomez nearly screamed from her left.

“ _Freddie!_ Don’t sneak up on anyone like that, I could have killed you,” she whispered harshly, voice just a grating hiss.

A boom resonated behind her and a new hole joined the one left by her fist. Freddie was gone just as fast as he had appeared, D left grasping air after him.

“Oh my God, I almost shot him!” Officer Taylor said with a shudder behind her.

“What the _fuck_ is going on?” D shouted, whipping around to face him. She grabbed the barrel of his gun and yanked it to the ground. “You almost shot a _kid_.”

He didn't answer, just shook, his whole frame shivering with shock. With a noise of disgust, she wrenched the gun from his grasp and broke the stock on the ground, leaving it and him there as she ran off after Freddie. The marks in the fake grass pointed towards the diner, so she followed.

Inside, the lights flickered and barricades were thrown up. The tables were turned over and ruined, and the fridges and food dispensers had obviously been broken into and destroyed long ago. A lump in D’s throat threatened to break free, her feet itching to run and her hands aching to just _hit_ something.

“Freddie?” she called out into the dimly lit room, voice shrill and nothing like she had intended.

Freddie didn't come out, but the _swish_ of a switchblade accompanied a familiar voice calling out to her. He sounded shocked and just a little tired.

“Butch?” she asked, incredulity dripping. “Isn’t this just the happiest reunion?”

“Oh, _shit_ , it’s Nosebleed,” Butch said with a low whistle as he crept out from behind a table.

D relaxed and crossed her arms, gauntlet a heavy weight on her chest. “Yes, it’s me. Could someone just fill me in on what’s happened?”

Butch scoffed and didn't put the knife away, posture still tuned for anything that could happen. _He’s_ afraid, she realised with a sick little start. _Butch DeLoria is afraid of_ me.

“You have a _lot_ of nerve coming back here. _You_ got out.” He kicked over a piece of debris and studied D for a full minute before putting the blade away.

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, Butch. Why in fact, just last week, I got stabbed,” D responded, tone light. She cleared her throat, suddenly acutely aware of the jacket he gave her on her back. She tugged aimlessly at the sleeves.

He noticed her nervousness and latched on for dear life. “Still got that jacket, huh? Whadd’ya miss me out there?”

“Eat shit, Butch,” she replied, disinterest apparent. “What the fuck is happening here?”

He grinned, hands going to rest in the pockets of his jacket. “Everything just got _fucked_ , D.”

“It wasn’t exactly perfect to begin with.”

“The Overseer is _nuts_ , man, and Amata won’t let us just shoot the prick. She knows all of these problems would stop if we did and we could just up and fuckin' leave. Some bullshit about how he’s still her father or somethin’.” He paced a bit back and forth, pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and took a drag. The sideways glance he gave D spoke as to how he felt about _fathers_. “You ever find _your_ old man?”

Delia’s jaw tensed. She shook out her hands, gauntlet clicking. “No. You ever find yours?”

He hardened fast and immediately. The cigarette dropped from his hands as he stalked menacingly towards her. “You have something to say, Nosebleed?”

She didn't back down. He smelled like cigarettes and sweat and pomade. “Touch a nerve, Butchie?”

His hands opened and closed in front of her and she knew he wanted to hit her. She almost wanted him to, he’d be so easy to just _end_. But she didn't come here to pick petty fights with bullies.

“Look, Butch, I’m not here to dick around with you right now. Just take me to Amata.”

He breathed in heavily, face a dark red and D watched as the anger receded. “You’re managing your temper better, I see.”

He backed away and got out another cigarette. “Gotta stay outta trouble, but now that you’re here, troubles just right around the corner.” He lit it and sucked in healthily.

“Trouble’s practically my husband,” D stated, eager to shift the topic away from her. “Those are bad for you, you know.”

He rolled his eyes at her and blew a puff of smoke in her face. “Whatcha gonna do about it?”

“Absolutely nothing, Butch. Just tell me where to go.”

“We’re in the old clinic, the one _you_ guys left abandoned.” His words were accusatory, but he had begun to walk away from her, indicating that she should follow.

“Save me the shpiel, Butch,” she replied as she followed him out the back door. _“It’s all your fault, everything is your fault, you and your dad’s. If he hadn’t left none of this would have happened.”_

“Shut the fuck up, D, just for a goddamn minute,” he whispered, stopping to look around the side of the building.

D listened, falling silent as she waited for him to give her the clear to go. She counted to 28 before he grabbed the sleeve of her jacket and yanked her along. They didn't speak again until the clinic came into view.

The windows of the squat building were smashed in and boarded over with siding pried from its walls. The steps up to the front door were broken away and rotting, the screen door itself ripped off its hinges. Blast marks and gunshot holes peppered the front of the building.

“Butch, what’s been _happening_?” she asked quietly, disturbed to see such a familiar place so destroyed.

“ _Everything_ , D,” he stated frankly as they walked around to the back entrance. He performed a knock on the door and after a moment, it opened.

The interior of the clinic had not fared as well as the front. It smelled like sickness, bloodstains all over the tiled linoleum. Furniture littered the floor. The sofa that used to reside in the corner by the door had been torn open, its stuffing strewn everywhere. The lights were blinking feebly and the equipment had been salvaged for other things.

D swallowed the bile and disgust that rose up, forcing it down and out of mind.

Amata screamed when she saw her, getting up off the floor in a tangle of limbs and flyaway hairs. She ran to D and squeezed her tightly, a surprisingly crushing hug for someone so small. D found herself hugging her back, albeit with awkward pats.

"Delia, I knew you would come back to help us!"

D stiffened and pulled away from her childhood friend. "I figured you guys couldn't do anything without my help."

Amata pursed her lips and regarded her friend, perhaps seeing the new scars and combat gear covered in a fine layer of dust.

"You need to help us stop my father," she eventually said, voice slow and even. She measured every word, only giving D just enough.

"I don't _need_ to do anything," D lied in a steely tone. "I could leave right now if I wanted to."

"You won't, though, Delia. I _know_ you."

 _Fuck if she isn't always right._ "Fine." D considered the ruined room. "Who's in this little "rebellion" with you?"

Amata sighed, lines seeming to become more apparent on her round face. "Pretty much just who you see here. And Freddie, but he's out getting supplies for us."

"What about Wally and Paul?" D turned to Butch, a satisfied grin spreading across her burnt face. "Couldn't keep your gang together, huh, Butchie?"

Butch didn't get mad, but his mouth squashed into a grim line. "Paul's dead, and Wally might as well be," he said, toeing at the ground with his hands in his pockets.

D felt the air go out of her like a punch to the gut. She turned away from Butch, thankful for the burn on her face that hid her shame. "Go talk to the Overseer?" she asked Amata.

She nodded her head fervently, messy bun bobbing. "Please, Delia, he's my _father._ I know it would just be easier to kill him but I still _love_ him. He's just not fit enough to be Overseer anymore."

"' _Fit enough'?_ Amata, your father almost had me killed! He had them beat Jonas to death, and he was gonna let Stevie Mack do the same to you!" D exploded. She seized Amata by the tops of her arms, fingers tingling under her gloves. "Butch told me this could have ended already, but you won't let them?"

She _wanted_ to believe the shame in her friend's eyes, but there was a disturbing resolve behind it.

“Delia, he’s my _dad_ , he’s just… not right anymore. He wasn’t always this bad, he just got worse and now it’s killing us,” she replied, her tone saying what she would not.

“I saw all the bodies everywhere. Amata how many people have to die before this can be over?” D asked. She had thought it had been over two months ago when she climbed out into the sun. Instead it had hung onto her, stuck in her head like a bad song. It had clung to her until now, and she was ready to shake it off.

“Go talk to my dad, D. He hasn’t listened to me yet, but maybe he’ll listen to you.”

* * *

 

The Overseer was in his block, staring out at the grounds from high in his office. He watched D as she approached, not even moving as she came closer and closer to him. She had her gauntlet removed, and it felt too strange. The missing weight unnerved her further, but she kept it off. If she was shot dead before she could get to him, there would be no saying that she had started it.

Into the bottom of the building, Delia climbed up and through the main lobby. Once she was into a side room, she began to rush. A pile of books in her way was knocked over when she misjudged how far she would have to step over it.

The sound was deafening in her ears. The enraged shout that accompanied it was even louder.

 _“You!”_ Officer Wilkins bellowed. He ran over to her, brandishing his baton.

“Me?” D asked, sudden worry gripping her gut tightly. _My weapons are away_.

“You never should have left! Everything that’s happened is _your_ fault. Now you’ll never leave!” He rushed at her, baton raised high.

He got in one solid hit, D left stumbling from the blow. Sheer instinct and adrenaline overrode the panic and dizzying pain. She grabbed the baton with one hand and landed a hit on his exposed throat. He stumbled back, spitting out wretched choking noises. D wrenched the baton from his hands and hit him with all the pent up anxiety she had gathered from being there. He fell to the ground, groaning and telling her to just _stop_ , but she was deaf to his cries for mercy.

“It was an _accident!_ ” she screamed, beating the front of his helmet over and over. “I'm sorry! _They were my friends!_ No one had to _die!_ ”

When she looked down at him, his helmet cracked open and head a pile of red pulp, she took in a shuddering breath. Her hands ached and her lungs burned. Another breath, then a long exhale. She dropped the baton and continued to walk.

The Overseer’s office took two minutes and forty-seven seconds to get to. He turned slowly when she entered, not bothering to greet her.

“Hey, Alphonse,” D said tiredly.

He scrutinized her. His hazel eyes seemed to land on every speck of dust. He divided his attention between each piece of her equally: the leather jacket, the kevlar vest, the leather pants, each boot. The red scarf, the new crop of sun freckles, then the snarls in her curly hair.

The fresh spatters of blood dotting her front.

“I see you have not learned any manners out there, though I don’t even know where one _could_ ,” he said as his eyes finally landed on hers.

“It’s not so bad. The sun feels nice, most of the time.”

His snort of derision was almost imperceptible, but it was there. He managed to look unconcerned even in the face of what he thought was his certain doom. Delia forced herself to relax and match his posture, but she found it hard to resist the urge to just reach out and twist that _look_ right off his face.

“Everything I have done here, I have done for the good of _everyone_. Your father made all of this necessary, and it is regrettable that it occurred, but I need to remind you that it was _not supposed to happen_. I know why you’re here, so why don’t you just do it. Just know that you’re killing the only person with this commune’s best intentions at heart.” He turned to stare out the porthole again.

D groaned, her hands going up to massage his piety from her eyes. “I’m not here to kill you. I want to, but I promised Amata, _your daughter_ , that I wouldn’t. Amazingly, she still loves you.”

“Then you’re here to talk some sense into me? I have more sense than all of those overly emotional teenagers put together.”

“You can’t keep lying to them, they need to be able to have the choice to come and go as they wish. How long do you expect you can last down here? How many people are left after all of the killings?”

D heard the retreat in his speech, the way he stumbled ever so slightly over his words. “We have enough residents for another pure generation, perhaps even one after that as well.”

“Another _“pure generation”?_ ” she shot back with a laugh. “How many more will die, though? Your pool of residents is dwindling fast, and the only way for you to survive is to _open the gate_.”

He whirled to face her, contempt and anger propelling his words forward. “And what would you know about that? Look at you, walking around in armor, covered in dried _remains_ and dust. In here, the residents can live without being afraid of dying. Out there, you have to _survive_.”

“Look, I’m giving you a choice, I don’t give a fuck what you do. Either you step down and 101 has a chance of survival, or you don’t and you’ll see this whole place destroyed by the year’s end. _That_ is a promise.”

He didn’t respond, just considered what she had laid before him. Fed up with him, D turned to leave. As she was stepping out of the door, he decided to speak up.

“And who will destroy this place? _You?_ ” he asked disbelievingly.

D didn’t give him the satisfaction of turning towards him. “Your sweet daughter can only keep the rebels under control for so long.”

She walked out.

* * *

 

At the gate to the compound, D came to a stop. The bodies were still on the ground in the same position she had left them. She walked over to them and thought about trying to take them to the incinerator, but that might have been more than she could handle. They were falling to pieces, and the smell besides would have made her pass out. She left them to the remaining residents.

“Delia! Wait up!” Amata called after her.

D stopped walking, weariness overcoming her as she turned. “What is it Amata?”

She jogged the rest of the way to D, cheeks puffing as she came to a stop. “I didn’t think you could do it, but you did! My father stepped down and I’m taking charge of 101.”

“That’s great, Amata. I have to get going now,” D deadpanned.

“That’s the thing, Delia, you _have_ to go, you make everyone here so tense. You can’t come back,” she said solidly.

“Fine,” D replied, tired of getting yanked around by these people.

“I’m sorry, D,” Amata said softly, reaching out for her friend.

D let her grab her shoulder and squeeze it. The tall, lanky girl then pulled her squatter friend in for a hug and D just _let_ her. Amata released her when D didn’t reciprocate.

“It’s fine, Amata. Maybe I’ll see you on the outside.” D turned and strode away from her, sure she’d never see her again. And if she ever did, it would be too soon.

* * *

 

Outside, dawn was beginning to break. D stayed there under the pines, waiting for the nocturnal animals to get some rest so she could move around without the fear of getting savaged. One hour turned into two, then three, and she found herself sitting with her arms around one knee, gauntlet now safe at home on her hand.

The door to the dome stayed open the whole while D watched it. Fourteen minutes after the third hour passed, a soft rustle reached D’s ears. She stood immediately, fists raised and poised for combat. Another rustle, louder than the last, drifted from the open door, followed shortly by a louder curse. A familiar face stumbled out of the dome, his hair falling out of its quaff.

 _“Butch?”_ Delia asked, fists lowering.

He looked up from the ground where he landed and saw her. He flushed, dark skin turning a mottled red. “What’re _you_ doing out here?”

“ _I_ live here.” He stood up. A comb emerged from his pocket and he began to restyle his hair. “No one gives a shit how your hair looks out here, Butch.”

He snorted. “That’s coming from the girl with a bush on her head.” He jerked his chin at her. “It’s been hours since ya left the vault, ya know.”

“I know. I’ve been sitting here for three hours.”

“Don’t seem all that exciting,” he said, studying her. His face broke into a shit-eating grin and D groaned.

“What is it now, Butch? Can’t you just get out of my face already?”

“Nah,” he replied as he put the comb away. “Gotta thank you for springin’ me from that shithole.”

“Thank me when you’ve been out here for longer than three minutes,” she said shortly, beginning to walk away from him.

He followed her. “Well see, thing is, you bein’ here is actually a good thing.”

“Is it.”

“Yeah, see I was thinkin’ now that I’m all done with 101, I gotta get out here and _do_ somethin’ with myself. You never know, maybe I’ll remake the Tunnel Snakes!”

She looked at him sideways as he tagged along beside her. “So far, you’re the only remaining member this side of paradise.”

He shrugged. “Don’t mean nothin’. ‘Sides, _you_ still have the jacket. You could be the first new official member. We can call ourselves the, err…” he said, trailing off. He looked around, D remaining silent beside him, too tired to pick a fight with him. “These trees are fuckin’ huge, D.”

“Yeah, they do that out here.” She yawned, gauntlet clicking as she went to cover her mouth.

“You tired, Nosebleed?” Butch sneered.

“ _Yes_ , Butch, I am _very_ tired. I just saved all your asses and got booted out again.” She took a deep breath and tripped slightly over a protruding root. “I don’t want to go back, but it’s different when you don’t have the choice.”

“You feelin’ alright? Ya haven’t even insulted me yet.”

“I’m just great. How long are you gonna follow me for?”

He looked like he was considering his options, the needles crunching underfoot. “I _could_ follow you around, if you want.”

She glanced at him sideways, shock spreading over her face. “Butch, I can’t _stand_ you.”

He bumped her shoulder with his own. “You don’t mean that, we had some good times. Like when we were kids, that was fun. Sometimes.” He swallowed, voice lowering. “Besides, you saved my ma, and that has to count for somethin’.”

“You really wanna stick around?” she asked. Her thoughts from the past two months sprung up behind her eyes. Her fear of getting through the super mutants without a partner, the uneasiness entering caverns and facing bands of raiders, her desire for a companion when she was out alone for days at a time. So many rejections from Jericho.

But this was _Butch_. He screamed when he saw bugs and he was a momma’s boy. He had been too scared to save his mother, so she had had to do it for him. He was a delinquent and he cared too much about his hair and he was her _only choice_.

A hand went up to the back of his head. “Well, yeah, you gotta stick together out here, dontcha?”

“I suppose so,” D said softly.

“So I could stick around for a bit, maybe buy ya a drink for opening the gate.”

“I don’t drink.”

“Two months out here, and you’re still as big a cube as when you left,” he said. Her lips twisted into an involuntary smile at how immature he still was.

She found herself hoping he didn’t die out here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was the first chapter, any feedback would be _so_ helpful! Please also visit the [tumblr](http://darlingdelia.tumblr.com) we have made for it, we'll answer any questions there as well.


	2. Greasy Lightnin'

**Chapter 2: Greasy Lightnin’**

“Butch, you can’t just go picking fights with anyone out here,” D said as she lifted Butch’s shirt out of the way. Blood was still seeping from him, but not nearly as much as before.

“I didn’t pick a fight, _he_ started it,” he complained. A shrill scream squeezed itself out of him when D dabbed at the knife wound with disinfectant.

"This isn't even that deep," D said with a snort, examining the shallow wound. "Stitches and a stimpak, you should be good to go by tomorrow, maybe even tonight."

He groaned. "I don't wanna spend another day in this shithole."

"I told you no one out here cares if you ran a gang. You have to have some _semblance_ of skill to back up what you say, or you end up with a knife sticking out of your gut."

"He hardly got me. 'Sides, I got a few good hits in." He paled when D handed him a piece of leather. "The fuck is this for?"

She rolled her eyes at him and pressed the disinfectant-and-blood-soaked rag into the ragged hole again. He let out another shout, though this one was coherent enough for her to make out expletives. "You bite it while I sew it up so you don't hurt your teeth, _or_ start screaming."

"I don't scream," he protested as she produced a needle and thread.

She sighed as she pricked him for the first time. He winced at first, but started screaming when she began to drag it through the wound. Soon enough, he was sweating and paler than usual, but back in one piece.

"Honestly, Butch, you _have to_ be able to take a hit better out here." She stood back and admired her needlework.

He pushed his shirt back into place and stood. He started to follow her as she walked away, but was visibly favoring his wounded side. D had him walk for a few minutes as punishment before she stopped him and wordlessly handed him a stimpak.

He grunted in thanks before sticking it in his side. They continued the walk back to Megaton until they were right in front of the gates. The robot greeted them as they entered.

D stopped to look around at the town. She could go to the bar, but she went there yesterday when she returned with Butch. He had spent the whole time getting sloshed and bragging about anything to anyone who would listen. Nova had even "offered" to give Butch a hand, but D had stepped in saying that she didn't want Nova to stoop _that_ low. Butch had been left confused as to what the two women were talking about.

"You know, today was supposed to be simple," D started as she walked towards her house. "Go to Super Duper for Moira, make some raiders eat shit, come back and go to sleep."

"Sorry I ruined your perfect fucking day," Butch replied sarcastically. He didn't sound very sorry.

D ignored him as she walked up the gangplank, continuing as if he had never spoken. "Now I have to take all this shit off, go find something to do for the rest of the day, and wake up early tomorrow so we can try _again_."

"What d'ya want from me, D?" he asked, voice half a snarl. "Beat myself daily?"

"You could try to be less of an _asshole_ ," D shot back, unlocking the door. She stepped inside and began to shed her armor.

He followed her in and watched as she removed her jacket. "Why d'ya even wear that thing anymore?" he asked. He turned away to remove the armor she had given him when she started working on the buckles to her vest.

She felt her face flush. "It's warm and the it's the only thing I own that fits over my armor." She peeled her reinforced pants off, leaving her in her thin long johns and tank top.

"Aw, Nosebleed, it sounds like ya really did miss me," he responded with a smirk. D turned to face him, shrugging a shirt on. She stalked over to him and gave him a light punch to the stitches, earning a shrill scream from him.

"I missed you like I would miss getting dysentery."

He rubbed where she punched him, glaring at her. "You're such a fucking bitch," he muttered, continuing to shuck his armor.

"Yeah, and you're a saint," D snorted, replacing her shoes on her feet. She put the jacket back on and zipped it up, jerking her chin at him. "You even any good with a gun, Butch?"

He put his jacket back on. "Ya asked me that yesterday and I told ya I was alright."

"Yes, and I believed you _then_ , but now I'm not so sure."

“Not like the guy pulled a _gun_ on me, D,” he said. “He just _bam_ , got out his knife and went for it.” He finished redressing and clapped his hands together.

“Yeah, well, regardless of how big a jump that wasteland junkie got on you, you’re gonna show me what you know how to do in a few hours when those stitches are more healed over,” D said, stepping out of the living room and into the kitchen. “I really needed to go to Super Duper Mart, too, ya know!” she called, the sounds of cabinets opening and slamming shut accompanying her words.

“But what if they get ripped open!” he complained, still standing in the small living room. The _whuff_ of him falling onto the couch reached D and she rolled her eyes.

“Better they get ripped open than you getting shot in the face because the kickback on your gun knocked you over,” she replied as she walked back into the living room.

Wadsworth drifted into the room and Butch watched the robot hover around for a bit before he started absently scratching at where the knife wound was beneath his shirt. “What are we gonna do until then?” he asked, his attention turning to where she stood by the front door.

She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him as menacing a stare as she could. “I don’t give a shit what you do, just no drinking. It makes you stupid and you bleed more.”

D could have swore she heard him complain, but she ignored it. “I’m gonna go and look at our guns and visit Moira, so hand ‘em over,” she continued, extending her hand towards Butch.

He grumbled, but handed her the 10mm she had given him. He didn't relinquish his switchblade even after she told him to. She decided to just let him keep it; if it broke, it was his own fault.

D left the house, taking care to lock the door as she left. The steel gangplanks rattled as she stomped up to the Craterside Supply. Confessor Cromwell beckoned D over so that she "may partake of the blessed waters," but she declined with a shake of her head.

Moira was happy to see her when she walked in. Then again, Moira always seemed to be happy.

 _"She's borderline deranged,"_ Gob had so kindly informed her when she had first brought up the spunky mechanic.

"Heya!" she called to D. The mercenary by the door gave her a cool nod before letting her advance in.

"Hi Moira," D said as she set her pack on the counter. "You get anymore powerfists yet?"

"Oh, no, sorry dearie. I'm expecting a trader tomorrow, though, so I'll be sure to nab any if I see them." Moira wandered over to see what she was doing.

"Thanks, Moira, you're the best," D replied as she rummaged through her bag. "I need to ask you for a favor."

Moira seemed to beam at the idea of being considered "safe" enough for a favor. "Well, shoot!"

"Could you copy a key for me?" D asked, producing the key in question.

"Easy-peasy!" she replied, taking D's house key from her. "This for anything special?"

D shrugged. "Not really. I just feel like it'd be good to have an extra in case I lose one."

"No, that's true, you can never be too careful," Moira agreed as she walked over to her workbench.

D snorted as Moira began working on the second key. "That's not what you said when you had me work on your guide."

"Oh don't be silly, it hasn't been so bad," she said.

"After you had me get as fucked up as possible on that drug-laced pool in the middle of the town, you had me go to that minefield place and get my legs blown off by the nut who lived there," D said somewhat absently as she watched Moira work.

"It's important to know the effects that all of these residual drug contaminants have on the body!" Moira replied defensively. "Be _sides,_ the little side effect from that came in handy, didn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess so," D said with a snort. "It stopped me from getting addicted to the _shit_ I had to inject myself with so I could stand all the shrapnel i had to pull out of my legs."

"See! Something good came out of that for you!"

* * *

 

It took Moira a grand total of two hours to cut and clean a new key. D paid her for it and left, gloves off so she could feel the newly cut surfaces. The planes were very smooth and pleasant to the touch.

D took her sack of supplies over to Moriarty's, sudden eagerness to see her friends bubbling up inside her. She had neglected to talk of what had happened in 101 while Butch was there. She remembered what he had been like drunk when they from when they were teens, and he was anything but good company. Not that he was pleasant to be around in the first place, but years of being forced upon each other had made them grow a certain kind of tolerance for one and another.

D walked in to see Gob beating the radio again. “I told you if you keeping hitting it like that, it’ll break for good,” she said as she set her bag down and took a seat.

“Hey D, ‘afternoon,” Gob rasped at her. He gave the radio one more feeble strike that only resulted in more static and gave up with a sigh.

"I told you Gob, it's the GNR, not the radio," Nova said from her place against the bar edge.

Gob grumbled and D grinned. They were so easy to be around. Gob pulled out a Nuka-Cola and passed it to her.

"So D, you get back from Super Duper already?" Gob asked, peering behind her for Butch.

"No," she said sullenly, popping it open and taking a swig. "Butch picked a fight with some wasteland junkie on the way there and got a knife through the gut."

Gob let out a low whistle. "Sorry kid, he was an alright guy. Then again, I met him yesterday but he didn't try to hit me, so how bad could he have been?"

D stared at Gob for a few seconds before a short laugh jumped from her. "Oh my _God,_ Gob. He didn't die, I had to sew him back up. He's sitting on my couch right now."

Gob flushed, tissues turning an ugly splotchy red. Nova stifled a laugh behind her hand.

"So you're gonna try again tomorrow?" Gob asked. He picked up a glass and began furiously cleaning it with a dirty rag.

D shrugged. "I have to. If Butch can manage to get his head out of his ass long enough to aim a gun, it'd be even better."

Gob watched as one of Nova's regulars came in. She lead him up the stairs and soon the tell tale sounds of an overused bed screaming reached them down in the bar.

D wrinkled her nose at Gob who just gave a sullen shrug. D considered him for a second before pulling out the spare key. She slid it over the bar to him.

"Here Gob, take this."

He picked it up and looked at it. "A key?"

"My house key. It's a copy, just keep it safe for me here in case I lose the original or I break it."

"I don't think this is a good idea, D," he said after a few seconds. He looked nauseous as he placed the key on the bar. "Moriarty might find it."

D shrugged. "Then keep it someplace he wouldn't look. I'll tell Simms you have it. He's more afraid of me than Moriarty."

They both considered the key before Gob sighed and picked it back up. He slipped it in his pocket, shaking his head at her. "I _really_ hope he doesn't find it, D."

* * *

 

Too soon, her Pip-boy alarm announced it was five o'clock. She stood and stretched, asking Gob to tell Nova goodbye for her. She had left a few minutes earlier with another customer, this one a wastelander from out of town. Gob looked sad as she left, but didn’t voice his complaint. Moriarty had returned from whatever business he had elsewhere in the town, his arrival ending any easiness Gob had about him. Moriarty greeted D as she exited, receiving a cool nod in return.

She walked slowly back to her house, feeling her pack jingle as she walked. She had cleaned the guns at the bar, but also wanted to show Butch how to. It wouldn’t help either of them if it backfired on him while under fire. Then again, she had never had a weapon jam, preferring her fists.

Inside her home, Butch was asleep across the couch, an old _Grognak the Barbarian_ comic spread across his chest. D gasped upon seeing the comic casually being bent by his careless actions. She ran over to it and snatched it up, smoothing out the pages that had become creased.

Butch didn’t stir as she replaced it on her bookshelf, next to many other books devoted to anything from boxing, to battle strategies, to simple serials on ham radios and electric cables.

D considered the shelf a moment longer before striding over to Butch and lifting his shirt up to check on the wound. Upon finding it sufficiently closed, she pushed his shirt back and delivered a punch to the fresh pink scar it had left.

He started awake, a yell trapping itself in his throat as the force of his jump rocked him off the couch and onto the floor at D’s feet.

He blinked a few times, a hand going to his gut where she had punched him. Then he seemed to see her in front of him and looked up, shock rapidly replaced by confusion, then by anger. “You tryin’ to rip it open again?” he asked through his teeth.

“It’s not that bad,” she said, though she knew it was probably still very tender. “It’s time to get up, you have to come and show me what you can do.”

“I’m not exactly in the mood for this right now, D, you just fuckin’ reopened my goddamn stomach.” He stood on wobbly feet and dusted himself off. He pushed away the hand D put out to stabilize him with a sneer.

“You don’t have a choice, Butchie. After you let some methhead destroy you and then left it to _me_ to chase him away, you have to show me you can actually prove _useful_ to me.”

He stood still and watched her pick up her bag, place two helmets inside it, two boxes of differing ammo, and walk out the door. She stood outside and counted, waiting for him leave after her. It took four seconds before she heard a muffled curse and heavy feet walk towards her.

Grinning a small smile of victory, she walked them both to the outskirts of Megaton, about a 15 minute walk from the gate. She took the empty bottles Gob had given her and lined them up on a small bluff overcast by a wobbly line of pines. Butch toed at the dirt, obviously waiting for her to finish. She added three more bottles out of spite.

“Alright,” she began, walking over to him. She pulled out the 10mm and handed it to him. “We’re about 15 feet away, see if you can hit one of the bottles from here.”

He scoffed and assumed a poor stance, though he hit the mark. She told him to move back eight more feet and repeat. This time, it missed and Butch cursed, foul temper getting the better of him as he fired three more shots, none of which landed on the target.

D sighed and stepped behind him. “Adjust your stance and line up your sights,” she said, kicking his feet into position and grabbing his elbow. “You have to have solid ground.”

He jerked her off and fired again. The wave of anger that washed over D was bright and intense, a hard flare that creeped up from her gut and wrapped itself firmly around her chest. She kicked out the backs of his knees and let him fall to the ground. When he tried to take her down with him, she stomped on his arm, being careful to not break it.

"What fucking gives, _Nosebleed?_ " he wheezed from the ground, cradling his arm.

She stood over him, the sun beating down on the back of her neck. "Listen, Butch, if you're gonna stay with me, you are going to _listen_ when I tell you to do something. You will _take my advice_ and you will _like it_ , or so help me _God,_ I will mail you back to your mother in _pieces._ " She placed her hands on her hips and glared down at him, _waiting_ for him to say something.

When he didn’t come up with a reply, she offered him her hand. He considered it for a moment before reaching for it and pulling himself up. D counted to 17 as they looked at each other, waiting for him to say something stupid. He didn’t.

“Good,” she said as she bent over to pick up the gun. She pressed it into his hand. “Adjust your stance the way I told you and shoot the fucking bottle, Butch.”

He grumbled but listened, allowing her to shuffle his feet into place. Her arms were around his chest from behind, reaching up and trying to push his elbows into the proper positions. He felt tense where she was pressed against his back and she told him to relax; this was a cakewalk compared to raiders bearing down on him.

“Get off my back, D,” Butch replied, letting out a small chuckle at his own joke.

She rolled her eyes, but stepped away from him. If he wanted space, sure, she could give him that. So long as he hit the target.

He took a deep breath and shot, the bottle exploding with a _pop_ that was drowned out by the ringing of the gunshot. D had him move back ten more feet and dispatch another bottle. He missed that one as well, but he didn’t lose it like he did before. He fired two more times, killing it on the last shot.

“Good,” Delia said, happy he could actually shoot straight. She reached for her bag and pulled out one of the riot helmets. “Put this on, I wanna see if you can still hit it with the helmet on.”

He put the gun in his pocket and D cringed inwardly, making a mental note to get him a gun clip. “D, this’ll crush my hair," he said, considering it. He put it under an arm and took out a cigarette.

“Bullets will crush your hair too, Butch, and _whatever_ it is you have under it,” she pointed out, wrinkling her nose as he breathed in the smoke.

“Bullets couldn’t ruin this ‘do I got goin’ on, D.” He grinned and blew the smoke at her again. She waved her hands in front of her face, coughing.

“If you're gonna blow smoke, do it over there,” she said, gesturing to indicate that he should _remove_ himself.

He groaned at her and wandered a few feet away to finish. After six minutes, he returned, crushing the butt against a rock. He left it there. He put the helmet on his head amidst much grumbling. The sound of hair gelled into a precise form getting crushed crinkled out from under the helmet. He adjusted it, squishing the hair even further.

As he lined up to take the shot, D came up next to him and flipped the visor down. “I don’t even understand how you have that much shit in your hair.”

He took the shot and killed the bottle. Lifting the visor and grinning like an asshole, he looked at D. “Told ya I could shoot a gun,” he said with all the ease in the world.

D shrugged. “The bottles aren’t moving, and neither are you. Keep shooting them and move back ten feet after each one.” She pointed to a boulder. “I’m going to be watching from there. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Aww, c’mon, D!” he complained. “There’re like, 10 left!”

“Better get shootin’ Butch, the sun’ll only last another hour or two,” she called behind herself as she hopped to get on top of the rock. The wind screamed a little louder than it had before, flapping the loose jacket around her. She shivered a bit, pulling Butch’s old jacket tighter against herself. She wondered where he had gotten the new one he was currently wearing.

His stance wasn’t bad and he was actually doing what she told him. She looked at her Pip-boy and switched to the radio. Three Dog’s voice screamed from the tinny speaker, fighting with the wind for who was loudest.

 _"Who says you can't go home again, huh? The kid from Commune 101 did, but it looks like the prodigal daughter's return didn't last all that long. She was seen coming out of 101, again, and headed God knows where. Don't let that revolving door hit your on the ass on the way out,”_ the radio spat out through static and poor signal. D sighed and hit the device, trying to get the volume to at least lower. She wanted music to pass the time, not a recounting of her fuck-ups. How he even got information this fast baffled her.

After three songs played through and Three Dog announced that he had seen her father, Butch came up to her.

“See,” he half-sneered, “I told ya I could shoot, now it’s gettin’ cold, let’s go back to the shack.”

D looked up from her Pip-boy at him. The screen cast a pallid green glow under his face and D shut it off. “We’re not done.”

“Like hell we’re not, I’m freezin’ my nuts off, D!”

“I’m gonna show you how to clean a gun and then you can try to fight _me_.”

He perked up at that like she knew he would. Butch would never turn down a fight, even one from Delia. Perhaps _especially_ one from Delia. “You sure about that, Nosebleed?” he asked, hands in his pockets and bleeding cockiness. “You want a repeat of when we were kids?”

D snorted and pulled out her powerfist. “If I can recall correctly, they had to drag you to the GOAT in pieces.”

“That’s complete bullshit, and you know it,” he replied, sitting down next to her after she patted a space beside her.

“Take your gun out.” She paused as he fumbled for it inside his crumpled pocket. He brought it out and she showed him how to take it apart, explaining the firing mechanism to him and how to get the residue out. This spring here, keep the trigger working well, snap the safety on before trying to take it apart, _never_ point it at yourself. He listened for the most part, but his eyes had begun to glaze over when she had launched into excruciating detail as to how bullets worked.

When he pulled a yawn on her she ended the lesson, putting the gun back together with deft fingers. Handing it back to him, she said, “Here, now get up and get the boxing tape from the bag. You’re gonna try to take me down.”

He snorted but did what she asked. After he had finished bracing his knuckles, he tossed it to her. She taped up her hands, grimacing at the crooked fingers on her right hand. She assumed her stance, taking note of how his hunched back left him open to get knocked over. She didn't correct him.

“You gonna hit me, or what?” Butch asked anxiously, rhythmically shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“I wanna see you charge,” D replied, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

He shrugged and rolled his shoulders, his eyes flashing with something that looked like excitement. He ducked his shoulders and charged her.

D felt a single solitary second of fear as she watched his massive form bear down on her. She was at least a half a foot smaller than him, maybe even more. His hair must have added a few inches as well. His foot snapped a twig and she spotted the problem with this form.

She grabbed him around the waist as his shoulder rammed her. He would have knocked her over had he managed to hit her in the chest, or if she hadn’t rooted her feet so firmly. Instead, she flipped him to the side and got him in a headlock. He puffed angrily and tried to pry her off, but two months in the wasteland had made her become tougher from necessity. A struggling Butch with an inferiority complex was nothing compared to a radscorpion.

“D, ease up!” he wheezed and she realised she had been actually choking him. She released him with an apology.

He didn’t waste any time in trying for her again, landing a solid hit on her face. With a curse, D stumbled back, fists raised to block his next blow. When it came, it glanced off, leaving him open. A few strong hits to the gut and one to the middle of his chest had him on the ground calling her off.

She was breathing heavily as she watched him roll around, most likely trying to make sure his organs were all still there. His hair looked flat and silly, and his jacket was rapidly being covered with dirt and needles. She strode over and bent down next to him.

“We can go again if you want,” she offered softly. He peered up at her and she saw hate there, mingled with respect. Just like old times.

“I’m good for today, D, thanks for askin’,” he mumbled, facing the ground again. He groaned to the pebbles sticking to his face and she rolled her eyes. Eighteen years had failed to make a man out of Butch DeLoria.

“You know,” she said, attempting to roll him over. He was heavy, but not too bad. “You shoot better than I do.”

“You’re just sayin’ that,” he said to the sky. He squinted at the stars. “Shit, D, there are _so many_ of ‘em out here.”

She snorted. “I can hardly see ten feet in front of myself, honest.” She looked up at the sky, considering it. “Yeah, the stars at 101 don’t really compare, do they?”

“I never really thought about ‘em, you know?” he said absently, seemingly content to just lie there in the dirt.

She nodded. She _did_ know. When the simulated dome over your head was the only thing you knew, you never questioned it. She had always _known_ everything there was fake, but never to the extent that it was. The trees, the sounds of animals and bugs, the breeze, the _rain_ , it was never real. “Hey Butch,” she said, nudging him with her still-taped fists, “you ever wonder why we never saw any animals in 101, aside from some bugs?”

He was silent and she could almost hear the wheels in his head turning. At least they had plenty of grease. “ _Shit_ , D. Just… _fuck_.”

“Yeah, I felt the same way.”

They sat there on the ground by the boulder until D’s alarm went of, signaling 9 o’clock. She had him pack up his stuff in the bag she had brought. His fingers lingered over the powerfist, eyebrow raising in question when he saw the name carved into the ram on the front. She shrugged and bagged it herself.

“I found it in an old power station,” she replied.

The walk back to Megaton was better than the walk from it. Inside the house, it was dusty and cold, but it was _home_. Even with Butch sleeping on the couch. Wadsworth greeted her and bugged her about the bruise Butch had raised on her face. She dabbed ointment on it just to placate him.

Her sleep was thick and heavy that night, and she found the ball of tension that had been steadily curling in her gut since she left 101 ease. If Butch could manage to _not_ die, she wouldn’t feel so alone in the wastes anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to illustrate parts in this but they all came out looking very... strange. If I manage to get them looking normal, I'll add them in! And as always, any questions or anything, please go [here](http://darlingdelia.tumblr.com) for them!


	3. Iron Fist

**Chapter 3: Iron Fist**

Super Duper Mart was a model of pre-war architecture. Then, the war ended, and all of the riots started. The windows were almost all busted in and half of the building looked like it was burned away long ago then replaced, then burned again. Old shopping carts littered the parking lot, scattered in piles amidst the old car husks.

“Looks lovely, doesn’t it?” D asked when they spotted it through the pines. She grabbed Butch’s elbow and yanked him down to crouch beside her.

“What gives--?” he managed to get out before D’s hand clamped over his mouth. He pushed it off and looked where she was pointing. He saw the raiders meandering around and his eyes widened in comprehension. “Shit, D, they don’t look good.”

“I agree,” she said, adjusting her powerfist. It clicked as she tightened the gaskets on it. “They’d look much better splattered on the ground.”

He looked at her and seemed a little green around the gills. She motioned for him to take out his gun and put his helmet on, and he followed her orders. She began creeping out from behind the pines, adjusting her helmet to get a better view of the raiders. She counted six. One was standing by the pines, lazily sucking on _something_.

 _Probably jet_ , she thought as she came up behind him and crashed her fist down onto him. His head splattered away, the empty inhaler falling from his hands. _Won’t even notice he’s dead_.

She signaled to Butch to start shooting. Guns had started going off, a bullet lodging itself firmly in her chest. The armor soaked it in easily, the impact hardly staggering her. She ran forward and crushed another raider, feeling drunk off the sheer _fun_ of battle. Butch’s pea-shooter of a gun wasted a raider easily, the body going sprawling away from the door to Super Duper. Three down, three to go and D hadn’t even broken a sweat. It was almost a shame that combat always seemed to end so fast.

One raider was shot in the leg by one of his comrades. D ran over to him and ended his misery, stomping on his throat to just _stop_ the screaming. In the moment of silence that followed, two people left of the six, a _ting_ rang out from D’s left.

Not even looking, she ran to where Butch had advanced out of the tree line, grabbing him and pressing them both into the pavement. She heard his _oof_ as the air was smacked out of his lungs and then the resonating _boom_ of the grenade destroying the remaining raiders. He tried to get up after the blast, but she kept him down, pressing his head back to the ground. Her hand was practically in his mouth and she hoped to God he had the good sense to close his eyes. Her own face was pressed to the ground, the visor of her helmet getting scraped up by pebbles.

Something huge and _loud_ landed what sounded like 50 feet to D’s left, the ground shaking. The smell of smoke and burning raiders was thick in the air, even through the thick plastic covering her face. She heard Butch groan and try to throw her off, but she smacked him. Another boom sounded from where the car had fallen, the old gasolene in the tank exploding as the fire consumed it.

D counted 86 seconds before she rolled off Butch and sat up. She looked down at him sprawled next to her and rolled her eyes. His eyes were closed and bits of smoldering debris were all over the parts of him that her body hadn’t covered. His mouth was open and it looked like he was saying something, but the ringing in D’s ears was too loud for her to tell what.

She stood and stumbled, pulling her helmet off her head. It hung from one hand as she massaged her ears, still watching Butch. He had rolled onto his side and was coughing on the pavement. D felt something like relief spread through her, there didn’t seem to really be any damage.

Her hearing came back quick enough. Butch was still on the ground in a ball, and she sat by him. They were safe enough for now; any raiders inside Super Duper were probably too high to realise what had happened outside. Or too afraid.

Her hand patted him on the back and he groaned, the sound too quiet to her still-damaged ears.

“You alright, Butchie?” she asked, voice raspy and muffled to her ears.

He shook his head and scrambled up, tripping over his feet as he lurched forward. His hands pried his helmet off before he retched onto the pavement. The sounds were sickening and D regretted her hearing returning to her so soon. She got up and walked over to him, anxious for anything that vomiting could signify.

She crouched down next to him and grabbed his head, her fingers combing through the pomade to feel for any bumps. “Butch?” she asked, anxiety mounting as he didn’t try to shove her off. “Did you hit your head on anything? Did you look at the blast?”

He just groaned and sat backwards, D’s fingers coming free of his hair. They were covered in grease and she grimaced at them, her powerfist’s glove covered in blood and hair gel.

“Are you alright, Butch?” she asked, looking at him and _not_ at what he had just puked up. “Where’s your gun?”

He swallowed and wiped his mouth, looking a little dazed. “What the fuck was _that_ , D?”

She crawled over to him and tried to look at his head again. “They were cars,” she said, combing her fingers over his scalp, her nose wrinkling at the blood and pomade. “They blow up when they catch on fire. There’s blood in your hair Butch, did you have your helmet on the whole time?”

He slapped her hands away from his head. “‘M fine, just fuckin’ stop already, I didn’t get hit in the head.”

“Butch you _threw up_.”

“I was just a little surprised, that’s all,” he mumbled, a hand reaching up to run through his hair. His hands were shaking and he noticed it, D staring at him with concern. He quickly jammed them into his pockets and pulled out his cigarettes. She looked away as he took one out.

“Head injuries make you throw up Butch, and there’s _blood_ in your hair.” She anxiously shook her fingers out, the joints stiffening from the grease seeping into them.

He looked at the hand that he had run through his hair and grimaced. “You put your fist through that guy and touched my whole fuckin’ head with it.”

“Oh,” she said, swallowing away her embarrassment. She shouldn’t have reacted like that, she should have just let him get thrown by the blast, she shouldn’t have to _protect_ him. “You puked.”

He snorted, the cigarette already half-gone. “I wasn’t feelin’ good, alright?”

“Fine, just… let me know when you’re good to go,” D replied, standing. Her limbs felt a little weak, but she forced herself to walk away from Butch. She strode over to one of the bodies and started going through its things. A pistol, a baseball bat, eight caps, one empty jet inhaler, three still live, a pack of mentats. She took them all and put them into her pack. One body had a stimpak, another, two. One of the corpses was still burning and didn’t look to be going out anytime soon, so D gave it a wide berth.

She spotted a small glimmer further on and jogged over. A combat shotgun was lying on the ground and D whistled, looking at it. She picked it up, examining the barrel of the shotgun. It was undamaged, but the stock was blown to hell and burned. Aside from that, it seemed alright, though, so she put it away in her pack. She turned around to see Butch looking around the parking lot for something.

She approached him, a loud curse reaching her. “You good, Butch?” she called ahead of herself.

He started and turned to look at her. He straightened himself up and stamped out what was probably his second or third cigarette. She frowned at him and he seemed to turn away from her, searching the pavement again. “I’m fine!” he called back.

She jogged the rest of the way and told him they were good to go in now. He nodded and scuffed the ground, his thick sneakers kicking at the loose chunks of pavement.

“Are you looking for something?” she asked, scanning the ground that he was just staring at.

He shook his head and cleared his throat. “I dropped my gun, but I got it back.”

She nodded and beckoned to him to follow her. At the doors to Super Duper, she crouched down and turned to him. “Don’t shoot unless I tell you to, or they’re shooting at us already. Keep your helmet on the whole time, and keep your head down. Also, don’t shoot any air tanks, or me.”

He snorted and took his gun out. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”

* * *

 

Cleaning out Super Duper Mart was surprisingly easy. Thirteen Raiders inside in total, though D only killed about five herself. Butch capped two and shot one who had managed to knock D to the ground. The robot in the storeroom had done the remaining work for them.

“You know,” Delia started as they walked out of the Super Duper. Their packs were both filled to the brim with supplies and weapons, D practically beaming from how successful the day had been. “I never knew you were good with computers.”

Butch shrugged, adjusting his pack on his shoulders. “I never knew you sucked.”

“I have many talents, but alas, terminals stop me in my tracks.” She beamed up at him, giddy from the fights of the day and the fact that she had had _someone_ there. Anybody might have been better than Butch, but Butch was better than nobody.

“The way you were nailin’ those guys in there, _nothin’_ coulda stopped ya, D.” He hiked the pack up further on his back, cursing as it sagged back down. “How the fuck do ya even carry this much shit?”

“You get used to it out here. Every item I carry is essential.”

“I saw that fuckin’ bobblehead you carry around, is that thing “essential”?”

“It was my dad’s,” she sniffed, turning away from him. Pines blocked the way ahead of them, but she knew the way back. Well, the map on her Pip-boy knew the way back. He snorted and shoved his hands in his pockets. The night had a distinct chill to it, but D didn’t mind it.

Megaton was quiet when they returned. D checked her Pip-boy and whistled, when did it get that late? She led Butch up to her house and let them both in. The room was cold and there was nothing she could really do about it, but she was the happiest she’d been in months to see that weathered couch and shitty throw rug.

Butch wasted no time in flopping down onto the stained sofa, his pack left on the ground by him. D rolled her eyes and went to the bag, getting all the food and medicine out of it. She put the food away in the kitchen, and the medicine upstairs. Wadsworth inquired as to her personal health, but she asked him for water and waved him away. Inside her room, she grabbed two extra blankets and another pair of socks.

Downstairs, Butch already looked to be half asleep, but D made him get up and take the armor off. He protested most of the time, but did it anyway. After they were both in just their clothing, she sat down on the couch and patted the spot next to herself.

“Aww, D, can’t we just go to sleep?” he groaned, falling down next to her. The couch bounced.

She shook her head and handed him the blankets. “No. I usually spend this time logging all of my new stuff into my Pip-boy’s inventory.”

“Do it upstairs,” he grumbled, tugging the blankets over and wrapping them around himself.

"No, you gotta do it too. We both do half and then connect the Pip-boys, it'll be so much faster," she said as she pulled out her adapter cable. She handed him the socks. "Put these on too."

He took them and slid them on over the ones he had already. "You're such a slave driver."

"Don't joke about that, Butch," she said somberly. She turned her attention to her Pip-boy and popped out the keyboard, beginning to log in what they got that day.

"You got some kind of log up your ass, D. Not like there're slaves out here." He pulled his bag up and started entering what he had grabbed.

D snorted and bent down for another item. "You don't know _anything,_ Butch."

"And you know everything, just like when we were kids, huh?" He picked up one of the cassettes she had put out, the one she found at Moira’s labelled _Synthetic Man_.

"I’m not going to get into a pissing match with you right now.” She began counting stimpaks. “There's a whole slaver camp north of here. The people there have bomb collars strapped around their necks and if they're bad, they get locked in a place called 'The Box.'"

He was silent. The only sound in the metal shack was the quiet tapping as they both logged their inventory.

"Shit, D, that's fuckin' heavy," he replied eventually, voice a mixture of shock and mild disgust. A hand went up to smooth over his hair. "And they're just allowed to do this shit?"

"Yup," she said, swallowing thickly. She sighed and considered the bottle of buffout she had just taken from her pack. "There's no one to stop them. When I went there I wanted to take it down, but I would've died in seconds."

"Shit, D, don't tell me you're actually thinking of going back there?"

"I told myself I would if I ever found kids in there," she said with a shrug.

"They enslave, _kids?_ "

"They'd need smaller collars, but yeah. It happens."

He was silent as she tapped at her Pip-boy. She felt tense, bracing herself against anything he could say. She was a bleeding heart and she knew it; she just didn't need him _saying_ it.

"You think you're gonna do it?" he asked eventually.

She looked up at him considering the 10mm she'd given him. He turned it over in his hands and then set it down.

"I don't know," she said evenly. "Depends, I guess."

"Depends on what, huh?"

"If I can find anyone crazy enough to follow me in there."

He snorted and started patting his pockets. She had seen him repeat the habit regularly over the past few days. "Your cigarettes are in the pack, but you're not gonna smoke in _my_ house."

"Aww, c'mon, D!"

"No, everything out here smells like shit and sweat, I'm not letting you add 200-year-old cigarettes to that."

He grumbled and she could see his hands shaking a little as he rifled through his stuff, but she didn't care. If she gave him an inch, he'd turn it into a whole mile.

It took Butch 30 minutes to finally breach what had happened outside Super Duper Mart.

"I, uh, wanted to say somethin' about what happened out there today."

D looked up from the pallid green screen and rubbed her eyes. "And that would be?"

He punched a few keys on his Pip-boy as he tried to find what to say. He snapped it shut eventually with a curse. "'M sorry 'bout pukin' all over the place."

She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned backwards into the arm of the couch. "I was worried. I didn't know if you'd been shot or something, or if your eardrums broke from the blast."

"Nah," he said, shaking his head. "That helmet muffled it pretty good."

She considered him for a second. He broke under her stare and looked around for something else to take her attention. "Look, D--" he started, but she cut him off.

"You know, Butch, when I killed someone for the first time, I was already out of 101. It's surprisingly hard to kill someone in full body armor with a baseball bat." She took a deep breath and turned away from Butch. “I had just stumbled away from the door and I looked back and saw the dome and just thought, _“holy shit, I lived in there.”_ I started wandering away from it and I ended up in a place that used to be called Springvale. Well, low and behold, it was filled to the brim with fucking _raiders_. There weren’t that many that tried to fuck with me, and I was lucky I had that armor I found in the commune, otherwise I probably would’ve died right there. But a few of them saw me and just seemed to think “hey, she’s obviously an easy target, let’s go kill her and steal her shit!” So a few of them tried to.

“I _beat_ one to death with my bat, and when it broke, I just used my hands. I broke two of my fingers doing that shit, but I had my class ring on, so the other guy got it worse than me. I didn’t stop until I got whacked in the arm with a tire iron and I’m pretty sure my arm fucking _broke_. I turned to look at who did it and it was a woman with hair gelled into these stupid spikes. She smacked me again, across the head, but I had the commune helmet on, so it didn’t really do anything. It’s a little hard to remember, my arm hurt _so bad_ , but I’m almost positive I just ripped it away from her and clubbed her until she stopped moving.

“I stumbled away towards an empty house after that and I think I either pried the bars off the door, or it was already open. Either way, I ended up inside this little empty bungalow surrounded by massive trees and I just laid in there for two days. I didn’t eat or drink anything, and my arm was broken, and so were my fingers, I was beat all to hell. I might have even gotten shot, but it went right through me. There was a hole in my shoulder that was either from a really long knife, or a bullet. I think I even threw up, half because I was hurting so bad and half because I had just killed three people and I had bits of that woman’s brain stuck to me. I laid on the floor in there, not even sleeping, but then I got myself up somehow. I mean, I got out of 101 to find my dad for a reason. If not to see him again, then to just tell him off for being a stupid piece of shit.”

Butch was silent after she finished her story. D felt her stomach clench uncomfortably at the prospect of having opened up to him only to have him be the piece of shit she expected him to be. She recognized what was wrong with him earlier, and she wasn’t sure if she could help, but it was worth something.

Surprisingly, Butch wasn’t horrible. “It wasn’t so bad, D.”

“It’s the shock of it all,” D said nervously, fidgeting with her Pip-boy. “The killing gets easier, if that makes it any better. It’s even fun, sometimes. It’s a little frightening that it is, but hey, everyone’s out for themselves out here.”

“You’re just a little bitch,” he scoffed, but his voice wasn’t harsh. It was the closest Butch could probably get to being consoling.

“Your capacity for sympathy is astounding, Butch,” D said with a laugh. He grinned at her and she found herself smiling back. She remembered back to a time when they were kids and being forced to hang out with each other. It hadn’t been all bad back then, and it wasn’t so bad now.

“What happened to you after that?” he asked, looking around the house. His tone was saying, _How did you get this place?_

Delia shrugged and played with the zipper on the jacket. “After getting out of Springvale, I stumble into Megaton, my arm’s broken and I’m weak from not having eaten anything for days, and the sheriff just tells me to mind my fucking business. I’m tryin’ to get away from him, then he mentions there’s a reward in it for anyone who can safely take apart this old little meth lab in the middle of the town. Well, shit, I figure since I know something about that sorta thing, might as well do it, I’m gonna need money out here. So I ask where the doctor is and I go to him, Doc Church is the biggest piece of crap you’re ever gonna meet. Well, next to Moriarty and Jericho, I guess,” she said, chuckling to herself. Church was kinder to her now, or at least more wary ever since she’d broken into his terminal. With half a mind to murder him, she’d struck a sort of truce with him.

“You took apart a drug lab?” Butch asked, incredulous. He had an eyebrow raised and smoothed down the front of his jacket.

“Something like that. The Doc patched me up, stuck me with at least three stimpaks. It’s fuzzy what happened the next two days after that, I’m pretty sure I was high as fuck from so much at once, and whatever else he gave me. Might have been med-x, I dunno. But two days later, he gives me this huge bill for keeping me there, fixing my arm, feeding me and shit. I can’t pay because I happened to leave my bottle cap collection in the fucking commune like a chump, so he demands that I just trade him shit to cover the cost. He took everything but my vault suit, the 10mm and the broken bat. I was completely cleaned out, but I was feeling a _lot_ better, so I decided to check out that shack in the middle of town, you know, the one surrounded by the shallow pool of water.

“I’m accosted by these religious nuts who want me to drink the drug water or some shit. The lab had been there for years and they just all settled in around it like these goddamn morons and it could go off at any second if someone shot the place or broke in and fucked with the chemicals inside. I had to wait until night to do it, but I got in there and took out these huge metal jugs and bins just filled with this shit. The air in there was hard to breathe and I’m pretty sure _that_ fucked me up too, but I got the place cleaned out after a few hours of taking everything away from the town and locking it away in a trunk that was maybe two miles away from town? Around there or something, whatever.

“Anyway, I go to Simms and tell him, he freaks out gives me a hug or some shit, tells me I’m alright, gives me _double_ for the job, and the deed to this fuckin’ house. And I’ve been here ever since,” D said, holding her hands up, indicating that was pretty much the end of the story.

“You mean that little shack that those people in rags stand around?” Butch asked, jerking his thumb in the general direction of the pool.

D nodded. “The one and the same. Used to be filled with drugs that would go off if they were hit hard enough, or set on fire. Would’ve levelled the whole fucking town. Almost did.”

_“Almost?”_

“I put a stop to that.”

“Shit, D,” he said, adjusting his position on the couch. “You tryin’ to become the saint of the fuckin’ wastes or somethin’?”

D barked a short laugh as she fiddled around for her Pip-boy’s cable. “Butch, I’m pretty fucking far from there, let me tell you. Give me your arm.”

He held out his left arm to her obligingly. She connected the two and waited for them to sync together. They beeped when they were finished and she stood up. Stretching, she said goodnight to Butch and picked up her bag. Upstairs, her bed was cold, but it didn’t feel so bad. She felt better having talked to Butch about what had happened after she left 101. It didn’t feel like such a heavy memory anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay well the fic was supposed to be illustrated but my tablet broke and unless I can crack it open and fix it myself, there aren't gonna be any pictures for a pretty long time. Talkin until I get my ass to a store to buy a moderately priced one. So, there's that.
> 
> Anyway, don't forget, tumblr's [here](http://darlingdelia.tumblr.com) and so are we. Feel free to ask anything or just tell us how you're doin'.


	4. Bloody Mess

**Chapter 4: Bloody Mess**

D rose at the late hour of _10_ the next morning. Warm sunlight cut through the cold air and she shivered as she dressed herself. She opted out of the heavy armor for an extra sweater and the leather jacket. While she considered not wearing it because of the sick sense of pleasure it seemed to give Butch, she remembered that Butch could go fuck himself.

Downstairs, her faithful companion was still sprawled out across the couch, his snores seeming to rattle the very walls of the house. She strode over and kicked his feet off the couch. He didn’t wake with a start like he had the day before, but he did let out a shout. She waited for him to get dressed, shaking her head at the eyebrow he raised when he held up the kevlar vest.

She took him to Moira to tell her what had happened at Super Duper, and Moira was simply delighted to hear back from her.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you again!” she said, wrapping Delia in a hug when she saw her. “I was worried something had happened to you when you didn’t get back to me yesterday!”

“It was pretty rough getting there, Moira,” D said, scratching at the sunburn on the back of her neck. “The place was filled with raiders and had some _extremely_ volatile cars in the parking lot, but it did have food and medicine inside of it.”

Moira jotted it down eagerly, asking the occasional question. She said D’s insights were invaluable and handed her a food sanitizer that she had been tinkering with. “You just switch it on and put whatever you were about to eat or drink in it, and it removes all those nasty germs and bacteria.”

“Thanks, Moira,” D said, though it sounded more like a question.

“Oh no problem, what with all the help you’ve given me, it’s the least I could do. Speaking of, I just got three powerfists in with the last caravan and I nabbed them just for you!”

D ended up taking all three and fixing her powerfist to full condition before trading Moira all of the weapons and gear they had accumulated the day before. The mechanic also repaired the bullet holes in D’s vest and the scorch marks in Butch’s jacket. They both visited Gob next and sold him the liquor they had found that miraculously had survived the raider occupation and the time in Butch’s pack. She had had to nearly force him to stop drinking before he got too stupid and they would have nothing left to sell.

After that, they wandered out into the middle of the town, slipping a few caps to Confessor Cromwell, for which he thanked her profusely. She firmly declined the offer to drink, though, and advised him to step out of the pool before he got sick.

“Rad-away isn’t going to fix whatever that water will do to you, and Doc Church isn’t really equipped to treat it.”

“Ah, your concern is warming child, but here at the Church of Adam, we are protected by his warm embrace from any ill effects others might receive from his blessing.” He took her hand and held it between both of his.

She smiled warmly at him and just said that he should get some rest. He thanked her for the donation again and she left, walking away from the stagnant pool towards her house. Butch followed.

“‘Church of Adam’?” Butch asked as D stomped up the gangplank.

“The pool is filled with chemicals that seeped out of the house and into the water,” D explained, unlocking her door again and walking inside. “I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure it’s pre-war slang for meth. It also has “House of Adam” carved on the side, so there’s that. Or the guy who was cooking the meth was named Adam. Either one.” Butch scoffed at her explanation, but didn’t raise a complaint.

They stepped into the house and D looked around, considering the cluttered room. After careful appraisal of her bookcase, she picked up Butch’s vest and tossed it to him. He caught it with little difficulty.

“What gives?” he asked, holding it in his hands and looking at her.

She had started walking up the stairs to get her own gear. “We’re going to go find my dad.”

* * *

 

A day’s walk away from Megaton, D finally decided to call it a night.

“There,” she said, pointing towards a small broken-down shack. “We’ll sleep there for tonight.”

Butch groaned. “Fuckin’ finally, D, my legs are killin’ me.”

“Stop whining and just walk, Butch.”

The door to the shack had been wrenched away, but inside there was a single large mattress that hung off of the bed frame. Other than the piles of debris, dried pine needles, and garbage all over the floor, it was a perfectly useable shelter. Butch saw the single mattress and immediately began complaining.

“There’s just one bed!”

“Grow up, Butch, we’ll share it,” she said, rolling her eyes. She bent down and dropped her stuff on the mattress, spreading her bedroll out.

“Just can’t wait to hop into bed with me, can ya, Nosebleed?” he grumbled, the smile on his face was smart and he still helped her move the bed frame.

“If you don’t like it, champ, you can sleep on the floor for all I care,” she said, hefting the heavy metal frame in front of the door hole. She strode to the bed and sat down, taking her boots off and letting them thunk down on the floor next to her. Running a hand through her hair, she looked at Butch. “You comin’, big guy?”

He flushed a dark red but tossed his own bedroll down next to hers. He jumped around, yanking his shoes off, then sat down with his legs stretched in front of him, intruding on her half of the mattress.

She eyed his grimy socks for a moment before rolling her eyes and taking out the food sanitizer Moira had given her. She put two boxes of cram inside, along with two bottles of Nuka-cola and pressed the button. It whirred softly for a minute before opening with a _ding!_ The food came out and she handed one of each to Butch.

She watched him eat, thinking about how the way he ate made him look strikingly similar to one of those giant molerats Moira wanted her to club to death with her stick. She laughed to herself and Butch asked her what was so funny.

“Nothing,” she said, a smile still twitching on her lips as she looked at her cram. “I thought of a joke.”

He grimaced and resumed eating. When they were both done, they laid out on the bedrolls, the padding welcome on the thin mattres. Feeling uncomfortable, D remembered her armor was still on and promptly removed it.

“You know,” Butch said from the mattress as he watched her take her armor off. “You’re not even that pretty.”

She looked down at him and made a face. He laughed at her and started wrestling his own armor off. “You’re no prize yourself, Butchie,” she said, lying back down.

“Paul would always go on and on about you, ya know,” he said, settling back beside her.

D turned away from him and rolled onto her side, taking her covers with her. “Butch, just go to sleep.”

“Man, he was _nuts_ about you, though,” he continued anyway. “Said you were the best gal in 101.”

“Butch, just _stop_.”

“And then he got bit by one of those _fucking_ things when your dad opened the gates, got an infection because no one was there who knew what the fuck to do, and died.” She heard him roll over to face her, but she didn’t turn around.

Her gut clenched uncomfortably and she swallowed a tight knot in her throat. “You want something, Butch?” she asked, voice raspy and tired. “You come all the way here with me just to tell me everything is my fault again? I’ve heard enough of that already, and yeah, I get it, I fucked up a lot of the things at 101, but there’s _nothing I can do!”_ By the end, her anger had taken a firm grasp over her and she sat up, facing him.

He looked mean in the glow from their Pip-boys and she was suddenly reminded how everything was _not_ great when they were kids. He was a piece of shit who liked to pick fights and deface public property and brought up old wounds just to rip them open again and jam salt in.

“Did I say it was your fault, Nosebleed?” he sneered, rolling away from her again. “You never asked what happened in there.”

She took a few deep breathes, pushing down the images of her just _hitting_ him until he stopped that flashed through her head. She didn’t _really_ want to murder Butch. Or at least she’d regret it later. She rolled back over and forced herself to close her eyes. “I don’t wanna know what happened in there. Not right now. I’ve been putting as much distance as possible between myself and that _fucking_ place for two months.” _And you’re a walking reminder_.

He just huffed to himself and they were both left listening to the other fume for the rest of the night.

* * *

 

The next morning found D feeling sweaty. She had fallen asleep perhaps a few hours before, not being unconscious long enough to have a dream. It was probably for the best, however; when she slept outside, nightmares came and with the nightmares it was better to not sleep than risk having them.

She stomped on Butch’s knee to wake him up. After berating him for twenty minutes over anything she could think of, she told him that if he said anything on the way to GNR, she’d shoot him in the fucking foot and leave him out for the bears. He remained blessedly silent after that, interjecting occasionally with whatever came to his mind when they passed something remarkable.

They wandered around the ruins of houses and tall pines for what seemed like hours. All of the broken buildings looked the same, and Delia was nearly positive they had passed by _that tree_ at least six times. She stopped them both eventually and checked her Pip-boy, letting out a scream as she realised just _how far_ they had come off their path.

“Somethin’ up?” Butch asked after D had managed to put her fist through an old wall in her rage.

“No, everything’s _great!_ ” she snapped as she jerked her hand from the crumbling bricks and plaster. Her gauntlet clicked as she shook it out, picking the pieces of debris from it. “We’re just fucking _lost_ in supermutant territory.”

“Supermutants?” he asked with a twinge of fear in his voice.

“I don’t have time to explain everything to you right now, Butch!”

“What the fuck is a supermutant!?”

“Big green guys who like to eat kids who wear too much hair gel,” she snapped, tapping away at the coordinates on her Pip-boy. If it could be trusted, she was by where Gob had marked Underworld for her.

“Heh,” Butch responded, snapping the collar of his jacket. “Sounds a lot like you, Nosebleed.”

She didn’t dignify him with a response, just stomped away to let him follow. Miraculously, they had managed to avoid the super mutants. D was grateful for _that_ at least; if Butch was afraid of bugs, facing down a centaur was like to just give him a goddamned heart attack and kill him.

The old Museum of American History was nearby, thankfully. On the way there, D spotted a small camp of mutants. She got close enough to see what they were doing and then immediately regretted it. They appeared to be _chewing_ on something. Or someone.

She shook her head and told Butch to keep quiet on pain of death. He listened dutifully, but as they approached, D upset a pile of rocks, alerting the mutants to their presence. They roared and ran over, too fast for D keep a focus on. She fumbled around her back for the combat shotgun she had found at Super Duper, her fingers thick and clumsy as she loosed a pack of pellets into the supermutant.

It stumbled, kneecaps breaking from the shock, but continued on. She could hear Butch screaming to her right, ignoring his shrill screeching as she emptied another shot into the mutant. It was closeby, near enough to grab her if she let it. One more shot turned its skull into pulp and she jumped out of the way of its falling body.

Two more were rushing over, one had maybe the _biggest_ fucking gun D had ever seen. She knocked her fist against her head, just to check if her helmet was still there. Her stomach dropped out of her when she saw Butch wasn’t wearing his. One mutant was bearing down on him and he might as well have been shooting blanks for all the good it did against it.

The 10mm's clip ran out fast as she rushed over to him. His hands fumbled with the new clip as he tried to load it, the sounds of bullets popping everywhere drowning out everything else. D screamed at _Butch_ , while he was just screaming, the super mutants were shouting and then it all just _stopped_. The only sounds left were of Butch and D hollering, the mutants all lying dead on the pine needles and chunks of cement.

D was the first to notice and stop her shouting, delivering a smack to Butch when he didn’t stop along with her. He complained and she hissed at him to just _shut up_. She looked around while Butch complained about the locals, voice shaky.

“Just don’t puke again, champ,” she said, going up to the mutants and picking through what they had. Which was not much.

She looked towards the Museum of History while Butch grumbled. Squinting, she cursed, hardly able to make anything out. She called Butch over and pointed towards the decrepit building, asking him if he saw anything.

He made a face, squinting heavily through the sparse evergreens and piles of rubble. “I see someone moving over there, and they have a gun? Or a really long stick.”

D snorted and rolled her eyes. “Your powers of observation are amazing.” She grabbed him by the elbow of his jacket and pulled him towards the building. Her Pip-boy’s blinking marker told her it was the museum. She just hoped it was right.

Upon approach, a ghoul woman called out to them.

“You smoothskins lost?” she asked, voice carrying easily over the distance.

“Is this Underworld?” D asked back, advancing slowly. She fidgeted with the zipper on her jacket.

The woman choked out a laugh at her question, leaning on a piece of rubble as they approached. “Ah, a _tourist!_ Don’t know why I thought you’d be anything else.”

“Tourist?” D asked. She stood about 15 feet from her, the entrance to the ruins gaping open behind her. “I’m not here on _vacation_.”

“Why else would you come to a museum?” she said, taking out a cigarette. “Face it, kid, you’re a tourist.”

D and Butch both pulled faces at the same time, the woman cracking a smokey laugh at them. D huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, conscious of the new bullet dents. “I’m not here to sightsee.” She uncrossed her arms and strode towards the ghoul, offering her hand. “I’m D, and this is Butch.”

The woman considered her hand for a second before shrugging and taking it. “Willow. I’m here to make sure the other muties leave us alone.”

“Do they normally stay away?”

“Yeah, usually. Ghouls probably don’t taste too good to them,” she said, with a shrug, sticking her cigarette back in her mouth. “Anyway, you’re good to go in, just don’t do anything stupid. Same goes for your guy over there. It’d be a shame to waste a bullet on you two.”

D nodded and Butch puffed up like he was going to say something. D shot him a glare and told him to just follow her inside. He did, though he sneered at Willow as he passed.

Inside was another door beneath a behemoth of a skull. D entered and came out into the basement. It was faded and peeling and had dust _everywhere_ , but was clearly cared for. It looked lived in.

Many of the residents stared as they walked through. A few whispered while others scrambled out of view. Delia tried to look away, but Butch gawked right back. He was nothing if not subtle. One of the residents came up to her and asked her where she was going.

“Uh…” was all she could think of, startled by the question. Where _was_ she going? She got the nagging feeling she wasn’t supposed to be here and _here_ wasn’t even on her list of places to stop at today. “I’m looking for Carol?” she said eventually, dredging up what Gob had said about his mother.

The ghoul brightened and told her where to go, directing her down the long hallway. D thanked her and followed, the path lined with small shops and frightening images of what happened after you died. They both walked past them, eager to get somewhere where the lighting was a little less dim and foreboding.

Down the hall, she found Carol’s Place. A ghoul with scraps of blonde hair still clinging to her skull greeted her warmly.

"Hello!" D said, self-consciously tugging on her bandana. "Are you Carol?"

"I am! You've certainly heard of my wonderful bed and breakfast before then, hm?" she asked, a smile breaking out on her cracked skin.

D couldn't help but smile back at her. "Yes, actually I have. Do you know a Gob?"

Carol seemed to brighten even further at the mention of his name. She leaned over her desk towards D, her frame practically vibrating. "Oh, you know Gob? He's my son! Well, not really my son, ghouls can't do that, but he's like family to me."

"Yeah, he told me that if I ever found myself over here I should come see you."

"Oh that's so dear of him. Can you tell me what he's doing now? Has he found a girl yet?" she asked so sweetly that D felt her heart wrench to the side.

"He..." is a slave? Works for a monster? Is in love with a whore? "...works in a bar. And I'm pretty sure he's still workin' on the girl part.”

Carol nodded, leaning back. “I’m so happy for him, he wanted to get out and see the world for himself.”

D swallowed hard and nodded back at her, feeling her throat ache. She took her pack off and laid it on the desk in front of her, asking what there was to see down here, could she rent a room here, and was there anyone she could ask about directions to GNR?

Carol answered her kindly, directing her towards Underworld Outfitters for supplies, the Chop Shop to get those nasty bullet wounds looked at, and the Ninth Circle to sell all that liquor she could hear sloshing around. After some prodding, she told her the story of what happened when the bombs dropped, Underworld, how she found Greta and Gob. D listened to her, Carol’s voice growing sad as she spoke of her father. The lump in D’s throat grew harder at the mention of him. She asked if Greta would rather buy supplies from her than sell them at the Ninth Circle.

“I’m sure Greta would buy it off of you, but we’re all stocked up already. She should be around, though, if you wanna check with her just to be sure, she should be here _somewhere_. If you’re going to the Ninth Circle, too, don’t make Ahzrukhal mad. He’s nothing but bad news.”

D nodded and handed her the money for a room. “I’ve had my fair share of wasteland assholes, what’s another one?” she quipped, looking sideways at Butch. He grimaced at her and she made a face back.

Carol counted the caps, happily chatting. “Just be safe, it would be terrible if he did something to you.” She finished counting and swept them into a small lockbox, replacing it back under the desk when she was finished. “Alright, and do you need an extra bed in your room?”

“What for?” Delia asked in confusion. Butch coughed behind her and she felt her face redden. “Yes! An extra bed is exactly what we need.”

Carol laughed as she showed her to her room. D thanked her profusely before setting her things down and stretching, stalwartly ignoring Butch lounging against a partition. She heard him mumble something and then the click of his lighter as he lit up. D turned to him and scowled until he noticed.

He exhaled the smoke through his nose. “Ya gonna ride me over everythin’ I do?”

“We’re in a basement and nearly everyone down here is coughing up the bits of lung they have left, and you’re _smoking_ ,” D replied, turning back to her things. She tightened one of the gaskets on her gauntlet.

“I see half o’ them smoking like goddamn ashtrays, D, go harass _them_.” He sucked in a larger cloud than usual, face full of spite.

“Fine, Butch,” she said, picking up her bag and trudging past, roughly shoving him out of the way as she walked out past the partition. “Get out of my fucking way.”

She could hear his heavy footfalls as he followed her. Carol greeted her and she nodded back, dodging around the bar and nearly slamming into another ghoul woman.

D let out a shout as she came to a sudden stop, inches from knocking the taller woman over. She felt the air rush out of her as Butch bumped into her back, pitching her forward before she steadied herself on the wall.

“In a rush, smoothskin?” the ghoul woman asked. She smelled like smoke, dust, and some kind of old, musty perfume.

“No, my _companion_ just likes to stay close,” she grit out, her hand clenching into a tight fist. The urge to just hit him welled up, but she pressed it down. His blood probably stank worse than his cigarettes. “I’m D, I just rented a room here.” D offered her hand, but she didn’t take it.

She crossed her arms and scoffed. “Alright, well I’m Greta. Don’t make a fool of yourself and stay away from Carol,” she said before brushing past D and Butch.

“Can you say, ‘bitch’?” Butch muttered with a snort, elbowing D.

She rolled her eyes, still half-mad at him just for existing. "She was certainly a real peach."

He snickered along with her, but his footsteps were unsure as he followed her to Underworld Outfitters. Puffs of light brown dust kicked up as they walked. D's thick boot prints and Butch's thinner sneaker marks were lost amongst the footprints of the other Underworld residents.

The store was an open bar area with felt ropes on one side. A slight woman with a wide face manned the counter, standing eagerly and waving as the pair walked in. D smiled at her, eyeing her inventory sideways. She was better equipped than 101’s security detail had been. D felt larger than usual, as encased by the shelves of armor and weapons as she was.

“Hello, and welcome to Underworld Outfitters!” the woman greeted, smile slashing through her wide, flaking face. “I’m Tulip.” She offered her hand and D took it. The woman had a strong, slightly crushing grip.

“Hey,” D said, plunking her bag down and flexing her fingers. “You sell armor here? Any powerfists? Or shotgun parts, I suppose.”

She nodded eagerly, gesturing to the walls around her. “What you can see is what I have, plus a little more locked away.”

D fished all of the weapons she could out of her pack and placed them in front of Tulip, gesturing to Butch to put his pack down. While D rifled through it, Tulip perused the counter. She whistled, picking up one of the weapons and examining it. “This is a nice piece, where’d you get it?”

D shrugged, proceeding to organize all of the items she had laid out to sell to Tulip. “I like fixing things. Four raiders each had guns that were falling apart, then _they_ fell apart, and I patched them all into one gun.” She sighed, putting the SMG she had been holding down. “None of them ever have powerfists. If I’m lucky they’ll have spiked knuckles, but even then the spikes are usually dull.”

“I have to say, you do a better job than Winthrop, but don’t tell him I said that.” Tulip put the gun down and examined the set of leather armor that D placed on the counter. “You sure you don’t want this? It’d probably protect you more than what you’ve got on.”

D tapped a fist at her vest with a grin. “This thing has saved my ass more times than I can count, I’ll stick with it. But I’ll take anything you have that’s like it.”

“Suit yourself,” Tulip said with a laugh. Butch groaned behind D and Tulip looked around D at him. He noticed her staring at him and swallowed thickly, a hand going up to rub over his hair as he went over to a cabinet and began looking at the handguns.

“So you’ll take all I have here, yeah?” D asked, dragging her attention from Butch.

“Sure, sure, but I don’t have the caps to give you what they’re fully worth, so you’ll have to take something in trade.” She glanced at the powerfist on Delia’s arm and nodded at it. “You said you need powerfists, I have one locked away.”

“Oh thank, _God_ ,” D groaned. “No one ever sells them, it’s so _hard_ to get them. He’s practically falling apart at this point.”

“He?” Tulip asked, raising the remnants of an eyebrow.

“He’s a he,” D replied with a shrug. They’d been through a lot together. She’d found it in an abandoned power station in the middle of a forest of sentinel pines. Numerous ferals and radroaches had stood between her and him, and had she known he was there at the time, she would have been less hesitant in continuing inside. “My powerfist has saved me too many times, he’s more useful than my _actual_ companion.”

“Your pretty smoothskin isn’t good for much, huh?” Tulip asked, writing down how much D’s items were worth.

“Not really,” D said with a sigh. She glanced back at Butch, giving him a sideways look when she saw him with another cigarette. She turned back to Tulip. “He’s not even that pretty.”

The corners of Tulip’s lips curled up. "All you smoothskins look the same, anyway.”

“So,” D started as she walked around behind her, looking at the combat armor. “What’s the deal here? I asked Carol about it, but I’d guess your neighbors are pretty new.”

"The mutants?" Tulip asked. She was leafing through a ledger as she watched D.

"Or all the radroaches, either one."

Tulip chuckled. "They're somewhat new. Well, new to us ghouls. They mostly leave us alone. They attack smoothskins on sight though, so I'd stay away. It'd be pretty nasty to be one of them."

"One of them?" D put down the helmet she had picked up. Butch was looking at Tulip as well.

"That's how they make more supermutants. Get a human, dip them in some FEV, and you've got your very own green giant." She smiled at the both of them.

"Sounds... Unpleasant," D replied uncomfortably. She turned back to the display and picked up a chest plate. "Why don't they live in here if they don't care about ghouls?"

"I wouldn't go asking that to anyone, smoothskin. Ghouls may be a far cry from being human, but we're closer than the supermutants are."

D flushed hotly, tugging at the scarf around her neck in embarrassment. "Th-that's not what I meant, I mean, just, like--"

Tulip put her hand up at D, waving off her stammered backtracking. "I know what you meant, no harm done, just don't go asking around about it." D breathed a sigh of relief and dutifully ignored Butch's snigger. Tulip took pity on D and rose from the stool, a small pamphlet and a book in hand.

"Here, take these. The mutants just don't come down here because we were here first. Plus, they prefer their own kind. And about Underworld, the whole place used to be an exhibit about this book right here," she said, tapping the book. "Take it and read it. Brochure too."

D took them and thanked Tulip, clutching the book tightly. The cover read _Paradise Lost._ She'd seen pre-war books before and had taken them religiously. Her chest tightened as she looked at the cover. It was worn and faded, but still one she had never encountered before.

D bought three sets of combat armor and extra parts for her shotgun. Tulip also had two powerfists, both of which D purchased eagerly. Butch wanted to a buy a new helmet that had flames painted on the side. She let him.

They found the Chop Shop easily after that, speaking to the two ghouls on staff there. Nurse Graves eagerly bought all the medical supplies D could spare while filling her in on the other "patients." Butch seemed to be unable to believe that the two glowing ones were really safe and locked away. Graves offered to introduce Butch to them, an offer D gracefully declined for him.

Doctor Barrows disinfected her entire body, finding cuts D hadn't even known were there. Butch had far less damage yet he managed to scream every time the whisky found another scrape. Barrows found a small infection that Butch had under his clothing that he hadn’t told D about, and she had managed to scowl at him the entire time Barrows was treating it. Butch just shrugged sheepishly at her.

After, D headed back to Carol's. Bottles rattled around in her pack, along with the new stimpacks she had purchased. As she started towards the stairs, a ghoul in a utility suit stopped her and asked what she was doing.

"I’m going to Carol's?" she asked, checking the time. Seven on the dot.

"You even know where you are, smoothskin?" he asked, folding his arms. He may have been squinting, but D wasn't quite sure.

"I want to say Underworld, but this sounds like a trick question."

"Huh, a _funny_ smoothskin. You're a stranger here, so don't try anything or shoot up the place, and you should be fine." He uncrossed his arms and stuck his hands in his pockets.

"The vague threats of violence are getting real old, ya know," D said. Her right fist clenched, but she managed to relax it.

"Try having those Brotherhood assholes out front shooting at you everytime you leave the front door," he snapped. "You're in ghoul territory, so you have to abide by our rules, or else we'll have a problem."

"Fine, fine," D said with a wave of her hand. "You need anything from me, while I'm standing here? Everyone seems to want something, even the people who just threatened me. Actually, they usually want the most."

“Since you so kindly offered, actually we do. Any scrap metal you find, bring it to me.”

“Didn’t waste any time there, did ya, bud?” D asked, crossing her arms. She stared at him a moment before letting out a deep sigh. “Fine, whatever, you’ll get your scrap, but I’ve got a finder’s fee.”

“Never outta the kindness of your heart, huh?” he said with a snort. He took a hand out of his pocket and offered it to D. “I’m Winthrop, if you wanna know.”

D took his hand with a small measure of reluctance. “D, if _you_ wanna know.”

“Get me some scrap and I might wanna know.”

* * *

 

The last place Delia had to visit was the Ninth Circle. She opened the doors a few moments before closing, Butch pressing close next to her.

It was dimly lit and more unkempt than the rest of the basement. Dust seemed to linger everywhere, small moats floating in the flickering fluorescent lighting. The air was more stale in there than the rest of building, stinking of booze and smoke. D resisted the urge to pull her bandana over her nose.

“This don’t look good,” Butch muttered next to her.

“It looks lovely,” D replied, standing stiffly by the door they had just came through.

“D, I’m bein’ serious, we’re gonna get shanked in here.” He sounded nervous as he muttered in her ear.

“This is our last stop, Butch-man, then we can go to sleep and leave tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a great plan,” he whispered with a snort. “Sleep with the zombies, then go out and have a party with their giant fucking neighbors.”

“They’re not zombies,” she said with a frown. “If I catch you calling them that again, Barrows is gonna be doing more than disinfecting papercuts.”

“I’m just sayin’, maybe this hasn’t been the best idea ya ever had,” he said, holding his hands out in front of himself. “There, I said it.”

“You say a lot, Butch,” she replied, starting forward into the room.

The first thing that was apparent in the place was huge bar with a sharp ghoul behind it. Next, as D swept the room, was the massive ghoul that stood menacingly by the corner of the room.

Butch cleared his throat and D winced. The room turned to look at them, so many eyes fixing themselves on Delia. She fidgeted with the gaskets on her powerfist, anxiety flooding through her. She clamped it down as best as she could and walked over to the bar. She plunked her pack down, Butch following suit.

The sharp ghoul looked at them and pursed his lips. “Something I can help you with? We rarely ever get smoothskins down here, let alone two. Sit down, stay a while, have a drink, tell Uncle Ahzrukhal all about it.”

Butch looked mildly amused with him while D felt her face twist in uneasiness. “You’re the proprietor here?” she asked, fishing around in her pack for the booze she still had.

He laughed and clapped his hands together, dust stirring around the bar. “Such an accent you have on you, smoothskin! So proper and refined, you sound fresh out of the can.”

“Charming,” D replied. She looked up to see Butch looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

“‘ _Fresh outta the can’_?” Butch asked, tugging a bottle of scotch free.

“Can, compound, commune, all the same things really. No scars on either of you, and at least _she_ speaks properly.” Ahzrukhal’s lips turned up in the corners, a sly looking taking him over.

D could feel Butch’s temper flare and put a hand on his elbow, tugging on his sleeves gently. She remembered the bouncer by the door and found that she didn’t very much like the idea of Butch spread all over the bar. He took a few deep breaths before rolling his shoulders.

Satisfied that he’d calmed down, D turned to Ahzrukhal. “Wanna talk business?”

“What _kind_ of business, girlie?” he asked, eyes narrowing at her.

Looking at him, D could see the hungry depravity in there. The kinds of _business_ transactions he’d be interested in flashed through her head. She gripped a bottle too tightly and she felt it fracture slightly under her fingers. “Look at everyone here, they’re strung out of their minds. They’ve gotta be jetting.”

“And where would they find the jet, hm?”

“I’m sure someone with your business expertise could come up with an answer to that.”

He considered her momentarily before bending down behind the bar and pulling out a medium-sized lockbox. Inside, he showed her quite the ridiculous amount of chems. It would have almost been funny had she not seen how mired in the shit the rest of the wasteland was. She’d seen entire towns leveled just because someone cooking shit like this had gotten careless and wasted whole communities.

“I’m not here to purchase right now, but I could help you restock,” she said, producing all of the liquor she had saved from Butch. A few inhalers and three canisters of psycho also came out of her pack and she felt slightly sick as she accepted his caps.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” he said as he eyed his new inventory, voice oily and disgusting.

“Not a problem,” D replied, voice thick. Butch was perched on a stool next to her, grumbling into a bottle of whiskey that she’d let him keep. She had relented when he'd tried to buy a drink. She didn’t trust the shit here and figured she would have been more upset if he got sick or dead than if he just got stupid off the shit they’d brought. Looking at Ahzrukhal, she gestured towards the ghoul behemoth by the entrance. “His story, though?”

“Ah, Charon!” Ahzrukhal said enthusiastically. His hands came together again, face brightening in a sick way. “He’s my faithful _employee_.”

“He doesn’t do much, does he?” She turned fully in her stool to look at him. He hadn’t moved more than a few small adjustments since she’d walked in.

“Nonsense, he’s just not very chatty. He does what I tell him, and he does it well.”

She turned back to Ahzrukhal. “Where’d you find him? Loyalty is hard to come by out here, I understand.”

“Not for Charon,” he said, voice slick. “I came by him some time ago, best purchase I ever made. See, I hold his contract, and he’s bound by it to do whatever the holder wishes.”

“So he’s a slave,” D said, eyes narrowing. She fiddled with a gasket, imagining her fist through his chest.

“No, of course not. Slavery is abhorrent. Charon is different, more machine than man, really. Chains are earned, though, and his personal choices have lead to some very heavy ones.”

“Fascinating…” D said, trailing off as she turned to look at the bouncer again. He might have seemed bored if D knew what bored looked like on him. He just stood there, not looking at anything in the bar. D went back to Ahzrukhal, finding herself under his scrutiny. “How much does hired help like him run a girl?”

Ahzrukhal stared at her a moment longer before pushing away from the bar. “You couldn’t _afford_ hired help like that, smoothskin. He’s my trusted bodyguard, and a man in my position can’t just let go of valued employees for _caps._ ”

Butch kicked her stool under the bar and she could almost feel what he was thinking; _Really, a slave, D? I woulda never thought._ Try as hard as she might, though, she couldn’t convey to him through thought alone that she _had_ to put a stop to this.

“Shoot me a number, big guy, just for fun,” D said with a wink. Butch nudged her stool again. She ignored it.

“Well, I could _possibly_ perhaps part from him for 2,000 caps, and not one less.” He leaned back against a shelf, arms crossing over his chest. His cloudy eyes were bright and shiny; he was _enjoying_ this.

D paled under that number. She had it, to be sure, but was she really willing to part with _that much_ to buy a _slave_? Her gut roiled and her head pounded and she felt actually _sick_. Butch coughed next to her and she looked at him. He was watching her, eyes hooded and not-quite-drunk-yet. He wanted to leave, and so did D, but she just _couldn’t_ yet.

“Surely even such an astute businessman such as yourself can see how steep of a price that is,” she purred, drawing whorls on the dusty countertop. “Couldn’t we come to a sort of agreement?”

“It would depend on your stomach, smoothskin.” He straightened up and approached her again. “Down here, I have competition.”

D swallowed down the urge to lean away from him. “I can’t imagine what kind of establishment could compare with this one.”

“Flattery is a pretty good hat on you, girlie,” he replied. “If you want his contract, you have to take out some competition I have managed to _grow_. Go and find Greta and kill her, preferably quietly, and come back. You’ll have your payment then.”

Butch’s eyes burned holes right into the side of Delia’s skull. She refused to look at him, keeping her eyes trained forward on the rotting asshole in front of her. “And if I refuse?”

He leaned back, crossing his arms again. “Then we never had this conversation, smoothskin.”

* * *

 

“D, you’re not seriously thinking about murder, are ya?” Butch asked, voice slurring. They were back in Carol’s Place. The dust in the air made every breath D took feel heavy and stale. She sat on the bed, Butch lounging on a chair next to his cot.

“Don’t be stupid,” she muttered, counting out all of her caps. _Three thousand eight hundred fifty three, and more at home._ She could afford Ahzrukhal’s price, but what for? A slave that she was sure she was terrified of and a nice helping of shame. “He’s a scumbag and he deserves to die, and he uses a fucking _slave_ to terrorize this place. I’ve got to do something about it.”

“No ya don’t, D, we could just leave tomorrow and never come back,” he offered, eyes closing as he leaned his head back. “Wouldn’t that be great, maybe we could go somewhere that doesn’t fuckin’ suck.”

“Butch, newsflash, this is the wasteland, _everything_ sucks.”

“Still better than 101, though, don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

“I can assure you Butch, we’ve gotta stay. Besides, think about how great it would be to have a seven-foot-tall ghoul there to protect us.

“You don’t need protection when the Butch-man’s around, doll.”

D rolled her eyes, wrapping her caps back up. “I’d forgotten what you were like when you’re drunk. Guess who’s never gonna get stupid again.”

“Aww, D, don’t be such a fuckin’ cube,” he slurred, lifting himself from the chair and dropping onto his mattress. “I’m not even _drunk_.”

She stood and walked over to him, flipping him onto his back. “I saw that second whiskey bottle you snuck, champ, don’t think you were being stealthy there.”

“Get bent, D,” he muttered as she forced his arms out of his sleeves. He grumbled while she pried off the vest and laid it down next to him.

“You don’t really mean that, Butch,” she murmured, tossing his jacket back over him. “Take your pants off.”

“Ya’re gonna have to ask more nice than that,” he said with a grin. She snorted at him and shoved him back. He smirked like a fucking idiot the entire time.

“You’re _really_ never getting another drink.”

“You’re _really_ no fun.”

“You can’t afford fun out here, Butchie.”

“Maybe _you_ can’t, with that whole tree up your ass.”

She sat down on her bed and pried her shoes off, having removed her armor when she walked in earlier. “It’s called growing up, Butch, and it’s gotta happen real fast.”

He rolled over and away from her, facing a partition, burying his face in his pillow. “We haven’t even been out a week and you’re on my fuckin’ case every goddamn second,” he groaned into his pillow.

“You’re still as big a biter as when we were little, I see.”

“‘S’not my fault your dad’s a bleedin’ heart.”

“Not my fault your mother’s a useless drunk,” she shot back, hardening at the mention of her father. “And it looks like you’re one too.”

“Ya weren’t this big a cunt in 101.”

She sighed, running a hand through her hair and promptly got it stuck. She yanked it free with a shout, just telling Butch to go the fuck to sleep. Within 10 minutes, he was snoring and she was left there sitting in the dim dark by herself.

Sleep that night wasn’t so bad. Though she woke up sweaty and aching, she couldn’t remember the nightmares. As usual, she woke up first, Butch snoring across the narrow room. Checking her Pip-boy and seeing it was closer to noon than the morning, she felt a wave of viciousness take her over. A swift smack had Butch awake and screaming at her, putting her more at ease. He was easier to deal with when he was mad, especially at her. It was more normal for both of them.

She greeted Carol and ordered lunch for the both of them, finding that Butch couldn’t stomach wasteland gourmet as well as she could yet. She counted out what she owed and gave the caps to her. Carol was all smiles and produced a letter, instructing Delia to give to it Gob, if she could please? D accepted and then her and Butch were both striding towards the Ninth Circle.

Delia was on a mission when she walked in. The same flickering lights weren’t as menacing as they had been the night before. All they did was drown the broken walls and light up the dust moats. Ahzrukhal was behind the bar, all greasy smiles and sharp eyes when he saw her.

 _He thinks he’s won_ , D thought to herself when she pulled up a stool and sat down right in front of him. She leaned over and turned the radio up, drowning out her imminent conversation. Butch leaned back with his elbows on the bar, eyeing Charon in the corner of the room. The enormous ghoul didn’t look back.

“So, my pretty smoothskin is back,” Ahzrukhal grit out between wheezes. He looked to Butch who had turned back to watch D. “I would say ‘drink ‘til she’s pretty,’ but she’s already got that covered.”

Butch scoffed and D brought the ghoul’s attention back to her. “Your pretty smoothskin is here with a deal for you.”

“I already gave you my terms, girlie, take care of business or pay up, either one.”

“Well,” she said, bending down to her bag and pulling out the sack of 1,000 caps she had made, “I have a counter-offer for you.”

She plunked it down and he looked at it, eyes hungry. “Surely this must be a joke. How many are in here, maybe _half_ of what I was asking?”

“ _Exactly_ that, my friend. You get the money and I get Charon and you never have to see us again.” She leaned back and made a show of checking the time. “Better hurry, I have a schedule to keep.”

“If I was going to even _consider_ this, it’d have to be at least 500 more. What else do you have to offer  _me_ , smoothskin?” He lifted the sack and opened it, letting the caps spill out.

D picked one up and played with it. “You’re a businessman and you’d be rid of one burden and a thousand caps richer. How long do you think it’ll be before he snaps, just wasting away in that corner over there? I hear you can turn feral from boredom, and I don’t think your flimsy contract will give you much protection then.”

Right there, his eyes changed. From the sharp depravity that had flickered in there, they shifted to _fear_. D latched on, knowing right there she could close this down. “C’mon make him someone else’s problem and he’ll be gone forever. You can only rot in one place for so long before even the _best_ programming breaks down.”

The proprietor considered the spilt caps for a moment before nodding. “You have a deal, smoothskin. Your powers of negotiation are a force to be reckoned with.” He pulled a worn piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her. “No refunds, smoothskin.”

“Thank you for the business,” she said brightly, picking up the contract and standing. His grubby, scabbed hands picked at the caps, counting them out in front of her. She walked away to the back of the bar, wanting to be as far ftom his as possible. Charon looked at her approaching him.

“Talk to--” he started, but D held up the contract, effectively cutting him off.

“Not so fast big guy, you’re getting out of here with me.” She flashed him a smile, Butch smirking next to her.

“Oh. You have my contract. That’s… good to know. Excuse me for a moment,” he said stiffly, as if in a daze. He pushed past Delia and Butch, walking up to his former employer and standing in front of him.

Ahzrukhal looked back to D and began to speak, anxiety falling off of him. D saw what was coming a split second before it happened. Shotgun out, two rounds later, and Ahzrukhal was an unsightly stain on the bar floor. Patrons ran out screaming that Charon had gone feral, while a few stayed, too strung out to notice that the floor had just gotten a new coat of red.

D nodded at Charon, Butch gawking at her side. She grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and pulled him out of Underworld, Charon stepping closely behind them. The floor shook when he walked, the rafters rattling with dust coming loose from everywhere. Residents screamed as they left, others whispered behind hands, staring at the three of them. Then they were up stairs and under the skull and gone from Underworld, Charon’s contract crinkling in D’s hands.

Outside, Butch stopped her, asking what the fuck just happened.

“If he didn’t, I would have,” she stated strongly, puffing herself up. Charon came to stand behind her as she faced Butch.

“Holy shit, D, just… fuck,” he said, fidgeting around. He took out a cigarette and D just left him alone for once.

“You,” she said sharply to Charon. “I can’t get rid of this thing, can I?”

He shook his head. “You’re my employer now, and for good or ill, I serve you.”

She heard the threat in there and she read between the lines. He’d been waiting to waste Ahzrukhal, and she couldn’t blame him. One less scumbag on the planet. She nodded at him and brought up her Pip-boy, pointing to GNR. “You know where this is?”

He squinted down at her, nearly two feet higher. “Galaxy News Radio?”

She said yes and he nodded. “It’s filled with supermutants,” he said.

“You’re going to help me get there,” she said evenly, turning the dials on her Pip-boy to show Megaton. “Is it within my rights as your employer to dispatch you to other places?”

“You give me an order, I follow it.”

“Good. Take us to GNR, then you’ll be going to Megaton to help defend it. Is that within the boundaries of your contract?”

He looked like he was considering her words, feeding them through the years of conditioning and radiation. After a moment he nodded. “I can do that.”

“Good,” she said. She put her fingers to her mouth and whistled, startling Butch. “We’re going, _now_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are. As ever, don't forget, blog [here](http://darlingdelia.tumblr.com) for anything you may have or need.


	5. Demolition Expert

**Chapter 5: Demolition Expert**

Galaxy News Radio proved harder to get to that Delia had originally anticipated. She had never thought to go through a Metro, and when they finally emerged on the surface, she was _sure_ she never wanted to go through one again. The dark and dank didn't agree with her, not to mention she could barely see four feet in front of herself. The residents weren't too pleasant either.

Charon knew the way, surprisingly. That, or he just had more common sense than D and read the signs that pointed them in the right direction. He kept the creatures there off of them. D had a hard time getting to enemies before he wasted them. Butch was mostly useless, not to D’s surprise.

“What the fresh fuck was _that_ ,” Butch screeched after the first wave of ferals had been taken down.

He had been hiding behind D. She hadn’t even had time to react before they were upon them. Charon had killed all three ferals before anyone could move into position. He was efficient in a terrifying way. “Feral ghouls,” she said, watching Charon go up to one of the downed ghouls. He kicked it then unloaded another round into it, the sound deafening.

“Those were ghouls,” Butch stated, shock in his voice. “They were hissing and then they tried to claw our fuckin’ eyes out.”

She turned away from the bodies and towards Butch, finding him uncomfortably close. They both took a step back. “It could’ve been worse. Fuck, it could’ve been a _lot_ worse.” She turned away and called to Charon. “Is it safe to move out yet?”

He nodded back and they went through the tunnels. The light of day at the end had never been brighter or sweeter for D to see. Well, the dim light of dusk, really, but it was still beautiful.

"Okay," she said, consulting her Pip-boy. "It should be that way." She pointed to a thin brush of trees and rubble, hairy poison ivy clinging to all the stones. She adjusted a dial on the map and placed her own marker, checking frequently as they walked.

A few supermutants bothered them, but they were put down easily. They fell hard with a few shotgun rounds, screams echoing with the gunfire. D liked to think she hit more than she missed, but Charon's shots all had the brutal finality of a supermutant exploding apart.

As they waded through the evergreens and mutants, shouts became clearer. _Human_ shouts.

"Hello?" D called out, peering around a crumbling wall.

Five suits of armor all seemed to turn at once to look at them. One, shorter with longer legs than the rest, reached behind its head and pulled something. The helmet hissed and disengaged, the hand tugging it free. A woman with the palest hair D had ever seen stared at her with a hard expression.

 _"Civilians!"_ she yelled as D fumbled with the straps to her own helmet. "You know where you are, kid?"

"I'm not a kid," D protested, wrenching her helmet free. She felt her hair puff up and grimaced.

"Well that's what you look like," the woman in the power armor said, shifting her gun and helmet onto one arm.

Butch and Charon wandered out from behind her. The ghoul narrowed his eyes, posture tense and ready for a fight. D looked to the woman anxiously as she eyed Charon. "We're just looking for Galaxy News Radio."

She looked from Charon and back to D. "Well, you're here." She approached D, one metal gauntlet extended. "Sarah Lyons, head of the Lyons Pride, Brotherhood of Steel."

D took the hand and pursed her lips. "So you're those 'Brotherhood Assholes'," she said.

Lyons raised an eyebrow. "That's one way to put it, though I wouldn't."

"I've been to Underworld," D replied with a shrug. "We just need to see Three Dog."

"I don't know what you think we've been doing here, but there's a whole _horde_ of supermutants between here and there."

"We've fought mutants before," D said, shaking out her hands. Her gauntlet clicked and Lyons' eyes were drawn to it.

"Alright," she said after a moment, replacing her helmet. "Follow us, just stay out of the way." She sent out a few gestures to the other soldiers and they starting moving out.

D replaced her helmet and started following, signaling that Charon and Butch should do the same. She grabbed Butch by the elbow and pulled him down to her height.

"Don't get shot."

He nodded at her. Satisfied, she pushed her visor down and waded in.

The whole place was a fucking mess. Mutants roared everywhere, bits and pieces of their comrades splattered across the crumbling architecture. It stank of blood and gunsmoke and half-rotted corpses. Suits of armor marched and clicked everywhere, their heavy boots stomping. A supermutant tried to cut Butch in half, but Sarah Lyons blew its arm to pieces before Butch became dinner.

They must have hit some sort of checkpoint eventually as everyone came to a halt behind a huge stone facade. D watched as the helmets turned to stare at Charon, gut churning as the fear of him getting killed on her account beat through her. Butch stood too close to her side, but she didn’t move away. He was easier to watch when he was stepping on her feet.

A quick update and Lyons moved out again, the anxious tension in the air loosening. Soldiers marched all around, heavy metal covered in dents flashing dully in the setting sun. Dead needles crunched underfoot and the air had the thick scent of sap under the smoke and blood from the freshly hacked trees. A path was cleared easily, overgrowth cut away swiftly.

The courtyard of GNR was lovely to see. The broken fountain still managed to spit something that looked like water and trees grew from every crevice. She saw supermutants screaming everywhere and rushed over, trading her shotgun for her powerfist. The satisfaction she gained from putting her arm through something made her stomach churn in the best way possible. The shotgun just wasn’t the same.

The mutants were cleared relatively quickly, and soon soldiers in armor that looked more found and beat-up than the others began cheering. D spotted Butch about 10 yards away, grinning that moronic smile he always wore. She grinned back at him, looking up at the crumbling towers. Twisted conifers grew from some of the cracks, their twisted branches reaching out like fingers from the cement.

She jogged over to Butch, mouth open to congratulate him on avoiding a mortal injury yet again. Before she could voice anything, though, a booming roar rattled the ground. Soldiers seemed to mobilize all at once, their shouts drowned out by the roar and chunks of cement that had been shaken loose from the noise. D made out a single word as all the suits of power armor screamed it in unison.

_"Behemoth!"_

Delia had enough time to register the confusion on Butch's face and the grim determination on Charon's before a pile of cars exploded outward. One suit was thrown by the blast and didn't get back up. Two others did.

Everyone erupted at once when what was possibly the _biggest_ supermutant D had ever seen busted through the smoke left by the car piles. Shots rang out in complete clarity while she felt deaf to everything else. Butch's mouth was moving, but his words never made it to her. _His helmet is off,_ she realized with a sick sort of fear.

She looked around and paled when she saw the missile launcher on the ground. Brotherhood soldiers were screaming to get the Fat Man and blast the mutie back to hell. She ran over to it, her vision clouding in panic when her shaking hands lifted it. Blood was rushing too fast in her ears, her heart beating out a stuttering staccato as she loaded the mini nuke. She brought it up to her shoulder and aimed.

The behemoth saw her and took notice, letting out another roar as he swung his fire hydrant in rage. She couldn't see him as he charged her. The chunks of cement and needles melted away as the memories of her lying with her legs half off at minefield crept in. She pulled the trigger and fell over from the kickback.

The mini nuke hit the mutant dead on. He was too close to D and the blast had her sailing through the air, the sky smoky for a flashing moment before she hit ground. She landed awkwardly on her head, and the only thing between her and a grisly demise was the weathered helmet protecting her skull.

She didn't hear the blast and she didn't know how long she lied on the ground for. All she knew was that the exposed skin she had was burning and she could barely feel her legs. She was just stuck on her back looking up at the clouds. The remnants of the buildings made a jagged frame to the purpling smoky sky.

Then her view was obstructed and she let out a feeble groan. A towering figure was looking down at her. It was soon joined by one that cut an even bigger shape.

D's groaning turned into screams as the shorter figure bent down and turned her on her side. Her helmet was ripped off and her face was turned to the sky again. She felt the sharp pain in her neck as a stimpak was jammed in.

The figure was shouting at her, and it was so _familiar._ She could still hear the soft _tink_ of a bullet lodging in a car and the deafening explosions the landmines made. The figure’s shouts were becoming clearer, though, and the more she blinked and committed the courtyard to memory, the more the agony and smoke of that day drifted away.

A few more shapes came in to block her vision and she groaned again, closing her eyes. She could still taste the cold tinge of fear that she felt lying on the broken cement and she just wanted to _sleep_ , but needles were being jammed in all around her body. Someone yanked her boots off and stabbed her toes a few times before she jerked her feet away, curling into a ball as much as possible on the needles and pavement. She moaned at them to just _go away_.

“Holy _fuck_ , D,” she heard and she _knew_ that voice. It was so familiar and current, she opened her eyes and the last bits of debris and bone melted away from behind her eyes.

She turned her head, still curled up. “Butch?” she asked, squinting so she could discern the face the figure crouched down by her had.

“Ya got blown clear across the courtyard,” he said, trying to get her to sit up. She did.

A hand went to her face and smoothed down her neck. She grimaced when she could feel the already-closing radiation burns. “I haven’t needed rad-away since I’ve been out here. I guess we’re gonna change that.” She tried to curl her legs under her so she could stand, but they felt _wrong_ with pain that shot up and out of them. “Holy _fuck,_ my legs are broken aren’t they?”

“No,” Lyons said, prying her helmet off. “Though they could’ve been. I’ve never seen someone that close to a blast not get blown to smithereens. You should be grateful your companion over there got here so fast, otherwise your skin would still be blistering.”

D looked to Butch who just shrugged at her. He turned away and pulled out a cigarette.

“Thanks for small miracles,” she replied, looking at her legs again. She forced them to straighten out, biting her lips to stop from screaming. She could feel Butch watching her, so she told him to make himself useful and hand her another stimpak.

He obliged her and looked away. Lyons stood near while her legs healed and Charon was practically on top of her. D counted ten minutes until her legs felt solid enough to stand. They hurt like a bitch, but she managed to get on her feet, accepting the arm Butch awkwardly extended to her.

“Thank you,” she murmured, giving his forearm a squeeze.

“Don’t get used to it, Nosebleed,” he whispered back, face breaking out with a mottled blush.

D waited for Lyons to finish talking to her other soldiers. When she was done, she turned to D and gave her a small smile. She looked younger with it on. “I guess I should be thanking you.”

“Haven’t heard that in a while,” D replied, then gave her a small shrug. “It was either blow it up or get eaten. Though making it digest me would’ve been more satisfying in the long run; I’d probably give it terrible indigestion.”

“Not exactly what I thought I’d hear, but I appreciate the sentiment, I guess. You did good here today, and I’m glad you came along.” She extended a hand and D shook it, keeping one arm on Butch.

“My pleasure. I’m sorry about your soldiers, though,” D said, gesturing to the bodies the other suits of armor were carrying away.

“They died a good death,” Sarah Lyons said somberly. “In the end, it’s what we’d all hope for.”

D felt her jaw tighten and she swallowed the memories of the explosions. This wouldn’t have been a good death. “I understand.”

Lyons nodded at her, face coming together in new grief and concern. Before she turned away to address the rest of her men, she told D she was clear to go in. Just remember to hit the buzzer.

The walk up the steps was a task for Delia. She resisted having to lean on Butch, but gave in when she could _feel_ her leg shaking apart. Charon came up on her other side and physically lifted her up the stairs. She complained the whole while, and even continued when they got into the building and encountered even more staircases. She didn’t order them off, though.

Three Dog was waiting for her at the top of his own little set of stairs. She swore when she saw them, and then she swore again when he popped his head over the railing and beamed down at her.

“Well, if it isn’t One-Oh-One come to visit ol’ Three Dog at his humble abode!” he bellowed, his voice ringing even more in person.

D winced, her ears still sensitive to such loud noises. “I would’ve been here sooner, but your neighbors were throwing one hell of a party.”

“Ah, they’re always settin’ shit on fire and yelling,” he replied, grin easy and sunglasses flashing. He saw that she was practically being carried and beckoned them up the stairs to the couch he kept. “Come and sit and have a chat with me, it looks like you don’t even have a leg to stand on!”

He and Butch laughed as she was placed down. She frowned at Butch, but addressed Three Dog. “You look like a damn fool with those sunglasses on.”

“I gotta keep these fluorescent lights and shit from fuckin’ up my eyes somehow.” He pulled up a chair and sat down across from her. “You’re real good and all for comin’ here to help lil’ ol’ me, kid,” he said, fixing her with a smile and leaning back in his chair.

“You know why I’m here,” D replied, eyes narrowing. “You know my dad and where he went, but you’re gonna ask me for something before you tell me. Like everyone else.”

Three Dog shrugged. “Nothin’ personal, kid. I've got to keep fightin' the Good Fight, and I haven't been able to reach all of my valued listeners ever since one of those mutants fucked with one o' my relay dishes."

"So, what does that have to do with me? Just go send someone from the Brotherhood to slap some duct tape on it."

"Creative, kid, but the whole thing needs to be replaced. This is where you come in."

"Hold it right there," D said, putting her hand out to stop him. “Now I’m not opposed to getting your relay dish or whatever the fuck you need since the static is getting _pretty_ annoying on your channel. Couldn’t you just tell me where my dad is and I’ll fix your fucking fight when my legs are better.”

He considered her for a second, looking at her over his frames. He must have liked what he saw since he smiled all huge with bright teeth and clapped his hands together. “Alright, kid, since I like ya, I’ll tell you where your dear old dad is.” He leaned in and spoke lowly, as if conveying a serious secret that wasn’t to leave the room they were in. “He’s got himself holed up in Rivet City, this half-sunk plane ship out in the Potomac.”

“A _ship?_ ” she asked, looking at him over her nose.

“Yeah, kid, this big old world one, with planes and shit all over it. They float on the water and sink real heavy when they break.”

“I know what a ship is,” she snapped. “Where is it?”

“Easy there, kiddo, don’t lose your temper. I wouldn’t want your very angry-looking ghoul over there to do anything if I made you mad.” He didn’t sound very worried, and he didn’t look it either, judging by how he threw his arm over the back of his chair as he reclined in it.

D looked at Charon who just turned to face her. She gave him a half smile and she could’ve swore she saw him roll his eyes. She looked back at Three Dog. “Just tell me, Charon couldn’t hurt a fly.”

Butch barked out a short laugh along with Three Dog, while Charon let out a snort. “Oh _kid_ , you and I both know that was _complete_ brahmin shit.”

* * *

 

All three of them slept in Three Dog’s apartment that night. An extra mattress was dragged in along with two leg braces for D. Butch and Charon helped her remove her armored pants to look at her legs, and she wasn’t too pleased with what she saw.

“They look _horrible_ ,” she lamented, looking at the lumpy bruises and broken veins that made an ugly lattice on her skin.

Butch brought a hand to the back of his head and seemed at a loss for words. Eventually he just settled on “Could’ve been worse.”

D remembered hot sun and hard pavement and shuddered. “I guess.”

She put the braces on along with two more stimpaks into each leg. So much at once nearly put her to sleep right there, but she forced herself to stay awake and catalog their supplies for the day. As she sorted, she absently scratched at the RadAway needle stuck in her arm. Charon sat at the table and cleaned his gun while Butch anxiously paced around, asking if it was safe to go outside for a smoke nearly every ten minutes.

Eighth time he asked, D snapped at him to just go check himself. He scurried away, still marginally afraid of her even with the destroyed legs. When he ran out, Three Dog came over by her on the mattress and sat down.

“How’re the legs doin’, kid?” he asked, lifting his shades to better view the ugly bruises.

D shrugged. “Could be worse. One time I almost blew them _off_. My bones were poking out and everything.”

“That’s gross as all hell, don’t go around tellin’ people that.”

D grinned in spite of herself. "I feel like it'd strike fear into the very hearts of my enemies, though. Imagine, "Man, don't fuck with her, you could break her legs and she'd still fuck you up"."

Three Dog laughed and said he didn't think anything could kill her; if at all, she'd probably just get pissed off. He took the opportunity to tell D what he needed her to do to get the relay dish. She frowned when he told her about the supermutants, but she had confidence that she wouldn’t get eaten. If she could survive a mini nuke going off in her face, there was a good chance a supermutant gnawing on her head wasn’t going to do much.

After the briefing, he left to go to bed and Butch returned. His hands didn’t shake and he stopped pacing around. D asked if he was alright and he asked if _she_ was alright. Save for the crippled limbs, she was just dandy.

“You know,” Butch said as he sat down on the mattress beside her. D bounced a little as his weight dragged the pallet down. “It’s like when were kids and you tried climbin' up the side o’ my house.”

“You got my baseball stuck, and I was not about to let a _game-winning ball_ rot up there.” She narrowed her eyes at him and he gave her a cheeky grin. “ _You_ were too afraid to go up, so _I_ had to.”

“Well, shit, yeah I probably woulda died up there.”

“I _fell off_ the _roof_ , Butch. _You_ got it stuck up there.”

He shrugged. “You didn’t even break a leg, quit complainin’.”

She turned away from him in a huff. He annoyed her for three more minutes until he got bored and went to the couch to crash. D took a few breaths to calm herself before looking over at the table to see if Charon had finished with their weapons.

He was staring at her, all of their guns laid out in front of him.

“Hey, you okay?” she asked, leaning forward over her useless legs.

Charon nodded curtly, but she didn’t take it to heart. Nearly everything about him was curt. “You wanna come with us to get the relay dish tomorrow? Being a seven-foot-tall ghoul would be a good thing out there.”

She saw the hint of a smile on his cracked face, but he shifted his eyes from her to Butch. “I would go if you had me, but I cannot guarantee _his_ safety. Only the contract holder’s: yours.”

He would protect her and not him. If it came down to it, Butch would be left to die while D would get help. She didn’t need protection half as much as Butch did. She nodded. “Alright then, could you start out for Megaton tomorrow?”

“Is that an order?”

“Does it sound like one?”

“It was a question.”

She looked at him sideways, already fed up with him. She could’ve swore she saw a smirk twitching at the corners of his lips, but she wasn’t sure. She was never sure, she could barely see six feet in front of herself. “Go to Megaton when you wake up, Charon. Tell them D sent you to stop someone from fucking up the town.”

Sleep that night was hard for Delia. Bangs went off behind her eyes and she woke to the taste of smoke and the feeling of shrapnel in her face. She shot up, breathing heavy and disoriented. Her legs clicked as she tried to curl them under herself, the braces stopping her. The room was quiet with bright, warm strips of light filtering through the blinds. Butch wasn’t on the couch and Charon was nowhere to be seen. Three Dog however, was at his kitchenette.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he greeted, messing with something on his counter. It sounded like cram.

D brought a hand up and rubbed the bits of landmine from her eyes. “What time is it?”

“No goodmorning for me? Aw, kid, you’re breakin’ my heart.”

“Goodmorning, Three Dog,” she said, rolling her eyes. She started working on the leg braces. “What _time_ is it?”

“A little after nine. The ghoul you came with rose at the crack of dawn, he must be a robot, I swear. He’s been gone almost three hours now.” He walked over to her and dropped a tin can in front of her, along with a bottle of water. “Gourmet eating, kid.”

“Thanks,” she muttered, putting it all aside. Looking at her legs, she let out a sigh of relief when they didn’t look so terrible as they had the day before. As she stood, she wobbled slightly, but was steady enough. She picked up the breakfast he gave her and started eating. “Did Butch go with him? I don’t see him anywhere.”

“I think he went to go out and re-grease his hair, or some shit,” Three Dog replied, sitting in the chair by his table.

“Knowing Butch, that’s entirely possible,” she said as she ate and paced.

“You keep interesting company, kid, I’ll give you that.” He watched her pace for a minute before he told her to sit before she re-broke her legs or some shit.

D shook her head. “I need to move them around otherwise that relay dish is staying attached to that lunar lander.”

“Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug.

Butch returned exactly eight minutes after D woke up. When he walked up the small flight of stairs, he found her already dressed and ready to leave. She gave him two minutes to get his things in order before they left for the museum district.

“Ya sure you’re alright, D?” he asked uneasily as they walked through the courtyard. Bloodstains painted the ground, stinking along with the supermutant remnants.

D looked at the spot where she had fallen the night before, walking far from where the explosion had occurred. She felt him watching her as she stared at the old blood smears and cement scrapes. “I’m fine, Butch, stop asking me before I feed you to a supermutant.”

Despite her request however, he seemed to be extra careful around her as they walked to the Museum of Technology. He stood too close to her and tripped her twice before she growled at him to back off. While she could appreciate his new want for her to not get blown to bits, he was going to get them both killed if he continued getting in her way.

"Butch, I'm _fine,_ stop dancing around me," she eventually snapped. They were close to a supermutant camp, probably thirty feet away. She pulled him down to crouch next to her.

"I ain't dancin', D," he whispered harshly. He pushed up the visor on his helmet so he could get a better look at her. "I'm just keeping a good watch."

"Just do it _away from me,_ then."

He grumbled but did as she told him. Maybe he still remembered how easily she could take him down. Or maybe he still remembered the sight of her flying through the air amidst nuclear fire.

Supermutants were thick through most of their path, but D attacked them with a seemingly new need for them to be dead. Her legs felt sore and running had a touch of pain to it, but she put it out of her mind. She half wished they would just break off already so she didn't keep blowing them up. But her wishes had never worked and no such thing ever happened to her.

Inside the museum, dim lights flickered over the partially collapsed ceiling. D thought of the Ninth Circle and its rubble and dust moats. The ruins of DC seemed to have a lot in common.

The place was filled to the brim with supermutants. Butch actually kept silent, something D would be grateful for until the day she died. Which might've been soon, considering how _huge_ the mutants were. None were as large as the behemoth had been, but they were all at least eight feet tall. D found herself getting sick of looking up at them.

After a floor had been cleared out, she spotted one of the exhibits. She grabbed Butch by the elbow and tugged on his jacket. He turned away from a gore bag he had found to look at her, face pale. “Look over here, Butch.”

He looked around her at the sign on the pedestal. “It’s a model community?”

“Gate-Tec issued and everything,” she murmured with a nod. She started towards it, walking softly. She stopped at the gear-shaped entrance.

Butch looked from her, to the opening, to her again. “You wanna go in?”

“No.” She stepped over the threshold and into the fake evergreen forest inside. She beckoned Butch to follow her. “C’mon, we have to do this.”

He hesitated before following her inside. She nodded at him, reassuring herself more than anything, and turned towards the fake trees. They were just trunks with sparse branches ringing their tops. The ceiling had been painted to look like the night sky and the tops of the trees. The same sound clips that had been fed through the fake pines around 101 were still grating out even now as the exhibit sensed a visitor. Her palms itched and she scratched at them absently as she watched her feet walk on the man-made rocks and dirt.

The side of the exhibit was actually very small. It wasn’t nearly as large at 101 was, but it had a few model apartments and public buildings. D tried the doors on every single building, but the only one that opened was the Overseer’s. It was a fraction of the size of an actual commune, but everything was there. D shuffled Butch through mechanically, the fake grass crunching underfoot.

When they emerged on the other side, they saw one of the posters advertising Gate-Tec. Butch snorted as he read the cheesy slogan. D didn’t.

“Let’s go get the dish,” she mumbled, stomping away from the exhibit. Butch followed her closely, like had earlier in the day. She felt something that could have been concern from him, but she ignored it.

They travelled through the planetarium quickly. The loud sounds and dim lights had D sweating and uncomfortable. Butch noticed and dragged her through a set of doors before any supermutants came, attracted by the noise. She squeezed his arm lightly in thanks when they were out.

The lunar lander was easy to find, in the end. The huge spiral of mutants ended up killing themselves mostly, a few tossed frag grenades getting the better of them. The _massive_ mutant by the model lander, though, proved nearly impossible to kill.

It roared just like the behemoth from the day before had, and D could almost feel the shrapnel in her face and her bones poking from her legs. The laser rifle it carried burned holes that seemed to surge right through her. It left smoking holes in both her and Butch, the latter screaming shrilly in pain until D shot the thing to pieces with her shotgun. She waited a few moments, anticipating it to get back up or for other mutants to run in, but they didn’t. So she ran over to Butch and told him to shut the fuck up before she gave him something to scream about.

“You’re such a waste of supplies,” she muttered to herself as she stabbed two stimpaks into him, one above the burn on this leg, and one below. A small dose of med-x followed and the wound was doused with whiskey from her pack. In the end, he was up and walking with a slight limp. The gauze she had wrapped over the wound bulged around his leg, covering the hole in his pants and thigh.

D proclaimed that he was not going to die, then told him to give her a boost up to the dish.

He obliged, but not before telling her not to fall and break her fucking face. She kicked his head in retaliation as she scrambled up to the dish. Despite how he wished she’d get electrocuted and that she could “carry the fuckin’ metal plate her own damn self,” he caught it once she got it unhooked.

He handed it to her when she hopped down and then they _booked_ it out of there. D put as much effort as possible into giving herself as much of a buffer between her and the model fake 101 as she was able to. She hoofed it all the way to the Washington Monument, stopping only when Butch almost fell into a foxhole because of his burn.

They wasted an hour there, D feeling like a ridiculous turtle because of the dish winking on her back. Then they were out again, getting to the obelisk quickly. The guards let her in when they saw her cargo. Two elevator rides later and they were back on the ground. D tuned her Pip-boy carefully, waiting to hear Three Dog screaming from her speaker.

Soon enough, he was howling again, fully functional. D grinned, invigorated by a job well done. Even Butch was smiling along with her. No sneer, just a smile.

“Looks good on you,” she said, jamming a finger into his cheek. He snorted and pushed her arm away, but his expression didn’t change.

“Ya hands are disgusting,” he said as he scrubbed at his face. “We gonna do anything now? Your dad’s in Rivet City, so let’s go.”

“Not yet,” she replied, fixing GNR in her coordinates again. She tapped on her screen where the flag was flashing. “We should go pay him a visit first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still [here](http://darlingdelia.tumblr.com) my friends, always up for anything


	6. Deep Sleep

**Chapter 6: Deep Sleep**

Three Dog gave her a key after congratulating her for not getting blown into quite a few pieces. He offered to have her stay the night again, but she declined, much to Butch’s horror. He still hadn’t gotten used to sleeping outside, and he complained about the bugs and pine needles as she left the building. They slept in the metro that night, the sounds of dripping water keeping Delia awake for hours. She pretended to have slept, but Butch commented on the bags under her eyes. She told him to shove his fist down his throat. He didn’t.

She brought them to the ruins of DC again. The ground was thick with super mutants, and D spent the day clearing them out, building by building. That night, Butch asked where they were going.

She said she wasn’t quite sure.

One night of killing mutants turned into three, which turned into a week. After eight days, Butch pounced upon her with questions when they made camp for the night.

“D, what the _fuck_ are we doing?” he asked as she handed him a brahmin steak.

She stood still, too rigid. “I can’t see him yet,” was all she said before climbing into her bedroll. He didn't bother her with more questions until 13 days into DC.

"Ya doin' alright?" he asked, voice a sick kind of concern.

She blinked the smoke and shrapnel away, swallowing down the terror and pain in her legs. "Yeah, I'm fine. Frag grenades are just loud."

“You look spooked, D.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” she snapped. She stood from where she had crouched down behind the rubble. _When did I get down here?_ She shook her head. “I just really hate getting blown up.”

“You sure?” he asked quietly, gun and hands stuffed into his pockets,

She looked at him, frowning at his poor posture and form. The super mutant gore covering him and the burns on his skin seemed to become more apparent. He had freckles, she noticed, and his hair had bits of debris stuck in it. She needed to get his jacket repaired, and she was probably in a worse-looking state than he was.

“Look, we can talk about it later or whatever,” she mumbled, scuffing at the dirt with her boots. Twisted bits of metal clinked softly together.

“Look, I just don’t want you freezin’ up or anythin’ and gettin’ a sledgehammer through ya,” he said as he stepped closer to her.

She hunched her shoulders and frowned at him. “Your concern is striking, Butch.”

He shrugged and smiled small at her. “I’d have to patch you up and I ain’t too good at that medical shit. Your lungs would probably end up in the wrong place.”

“Fucking useless,” she snorted, a slight grin breaking out. She looked away from him and towards a pile of rubble. “C’mon, I think I heard a sound from up there. Could be a captive.”

They scaled the chunks of cement to find a girl tied up and lying down. She looked half a kid and D did her best to calm her down as she untied her.

“I-I don’t know how to thank you,” she stammered out, standing on wobbly legs. “I thought I was a goner for sure.”

“No problem,” D said as she looked down at her. _Down_ at her.

Butch gave a low whistle behind her. “Kid, how old are you?”

She puffed up and shrank away at the same time. “I’m almost 16.”

D rolled her eyes at Butch and shoved how _young_ she was out of her head. “Well do me a favor and actually hit 16, alright?”

The girl swallowed and looked at D a moment before nodding. She looked around and then seemed to remember something. “I… I think I have something for you. As a thanks, I mean.” She produced a frag grenade and a few shotgun shells. “Here, I hid these--”

D snatched the items from her hands, stopping her from finishing. “Okay, no, these aren’t safe. Just, just take something we have. Can you shoot at all? What’s your _name_?”

She shrank back at the level of D’s voice. Gravel crunched behind then both as Butch came closer, a hand going to her shoulder. She tensed under his hand, then relaxed a bit. “I’m sorry, people usually just end up blowing themselves up with this shit.”

“I-it’s fine, I guess. You did save me after all. I’m Lydia.” She looked at D’s gloves and seemed to think better about offering her hand.

“I’m D, and he’s Butch,” D said, gesturing to the both of them in turn. She could feel Butch’s grin and rolled her eyes. “Where are you from?”

“Umm…” Lydia said in confusion, considering D’s question. “West, I think? We lived in the forests, me and my family, and then the super mutants came in…”

D nodded, and asked where she was going to go.

Lydia started to tear up and D could see how young she was, and how she was still _just shy_ of 16. Covered in dirt and blood, she looked like a little kid. “I don’t have anywhere to go! I lost my sister when they came and I haven’t seen her since, it’s just me now.”

“You’re coming with us, then,” D said, iron resolve in her voice. Butch didn’t say anything and it felt like he agreed with her. Lydia, however, paled.

“N-n-n-no, pl-please, I’ll get killed in a second,” she warbled out, choking on tears.

“Oh God, don’t cry, please,” D said, all rushed as she patted her awkwardly. “Look, I was just gonna bring you to the Brotherhood, they’ll know what to do with you.”

They waited for her sobs to subside, and she agreed. It took two hours to march Lydia to a small outpost, and even then she was too weak from malnutrition and dehydrated to walk the whole way. D offered to carry her, but Butch ended up with that job. He didn’t say it, but Delia’s episode from earlier still worried him, she knew it. The soldiers they handed Lydia off to complained about it, but they took her and fed her. Delia and Butch left and wandered near back where they had found her.

Butch found a small cave made by collapsed concrete and suggested they camp there for the night. D would have preferred to keep going and empty DC just a little bit more, but her legs ached and her poor sleeping habits wore heavily on her. She agreed.

“So,” Butch said around a mouthful of Cram, “wanna talk about it?”

“I don’t. I thought Lydia was a pretty capable girl, I mean, she survived a super mutant attack,” D replied as she rifled around in her pack. She pulled out a box of Fancy Lads with a small noise of triumph.

“Ya know what I mean,” he huffed before demanding that she give him one of the snack cakes.

She tossed him one and sighed. “Yeah, I know. It’s stupid and there’s really no reason for me to be freaking out like that all the time.” She wrapped her arms around her legs and looked at her boots. They needed to be fixed a bit.

“Don’t be like that, D. It’s not fucking stupid to you and it ain't stupid to me,” he spat out around the food.

“Why, Butch, if I didn’t know better, it sounded like you were being _nice_.”

“Don’t go around telling people that, I got a reputation to protect.” He sniffed and straightened the collar of his jacket.

She smiled at him, closed-mouth and wide, her eyes crinkling up in the corners. She watched him pat anxiously for his cigarettes, then think better of it and let it go. “Your secret’s safe with me, big guy.”

He huffed and leaned back in their little cave. They both let the silence continue, D feeling the memory of what happened today playing through her head. After seven minutes, she adjusted how she was sitting and scooted closer to Butch. He raised an eyebrow at her, but she just shrugged at him.

“Before you made me take you with me, I actually did a bit of exploring by myself, and I did some stuff for Moira, and she had me go to that place, Minefield. Well, there was this nutcase living there who set the mines off as I was walking through, and my legs almost got blown off. It was like leaving 101 all over again, I was just lying there with my bones poking out, jamming stimpaks and med-x into them so I could get up and just leave. I just laid there, baking, while everything around me exploded. I had the good luck to land behind a house so he couldn’t just shoot me, but still.” She took in a deep breath and then let out, then sucked in another one. She held it while Butch remained silent. When he didn’t say anything, she let it out in a rush. “I just _really_ hate explosions now.”

He nodded, looking at her. Eventually he just cursed and rubbed at his head. “Fuck, D, are you alright?”

“Yeah, most of the time. Shit exploding, that really gets to me. It was worse when I was alone and I was so afraid of going out by myself because what if next time it happened, my legs really _did_ come off, I’d just bleed to death out there.”

“Well, ya got me here, so no worries.”

He grinned at her and she smiled back. He was borderline useless, but there was a strange kindness behind his smile. It was uncharacteristic, but a comfort nonetheless.

“You know,” she started, running a hand through the snarls in her hair, “you’re not as big a dickwad as you were when you walked out.”

“See, you go and say shit like that, and what am I supposed to say? Ya right?”

“A simple ‘thank you’ would be fine.”

“Still so fuckin’ lame.”

She rolled her eyes and he laughed. As much as he was loathe to admit it, he was different. Maybe it was the close proximity or the nature of living in the wasteland but to D, he seemed more _immediate_. He wasn’t just the obnoxious stain from 101, he seemed like he cared about others more. Or at least like he was less hostile.

Three days later, she voiced it to him. He denied it vehemently, but then followed up by saying that D was different too.

“Really, DeLoria?” she asked as she picked through the remains of their latest kill. The super mutants hadn’t even stood a chance. The two of them had become efficient killing machines, routinely slaughtering any mutants they came across. Which, after nearly three weeks out in DC cleaning, wasn’t many.

“Well, yeah.” He kicked over a severed green arm and lit a cigarette. “In the commune, you were a grade-A bitch. Still are, but it’s a different kind. Miss Goody-Two-Shoes, traipsing around doing good shit. Besides, you’re a Tunnel Snake now, and I like that,” he said, grinning as he brought the cigarette to his lips.

“You grow up out here, or you die,” she said with a shrug. She pulled a frag grenade from the mutant’s dead grasp and pocketed it. “Besides,” she said, straightening up, “no one out here is willing to be _nice_ , so someone’s got to be. And like I said, the jacket fits over my armor and it’s _cold_ out.”

He snorted. “Keep tellin’ yourself that, D.”

She walked over to him and nailed him on the shoulder. He let out a shout but managed to punch her back. Her face broke out in a grin, the skin stretching with slight pain as she agitated her sunburn. He grinned back at her and she thought back yet again to when they were kids being forced upon each other. It was different, though, something else. They weren’t eight-years-old anymore and stealing holotapes to teen-movies. They weren’t being _forced_ together. It was nice, in a way. Delia found that days with Butch were easy. She wasn’t afraid of her impending doom, or of getting killed, or of being too late. She just wasn’t _afraid_ anymore.

Butch might not have been the best to have around under fire, but he was certainly better than nothing. And she’d had nothing before; he was better, bullet holes and all.

She didn’t know how long they just rummaged through the mutants after that, silently taking in what the other had said. D was in the middle of sifting through a gorebag, up to the elbow in remains when Butch called her over.

“What’s up?” she asked, shaking the bits of blood and flesh off of her arm. He made a face at her and she grinned again, showing him her bloody fistfull of caps. “There’s usually some pretty good shit in there.”

“That’s disgusting.” He gave her one last look before pointing to the left of him. “I think I heard something. Sounds like an animal, maybe a bear.”

She started walking towards where he pointed, rolling her eyes. “Bears don’t come out here, they live in the pine forests.”

“Whatever, it sounded loud and snarly and like it wanted to start shit.”

“Fine, just follow me.” When she was sure he was within earshot and following she muttered softly, “Ya big baby.”

He puffed up but didn’t reply. He was right; there were yelps and laughter coming from the other side of the pile of cement. D peered over and groaned quietly to herself. Raiders this far into the DC ruins was fucking ridiculous, it was like they were asking to get eaten by the super mutants.

There were four of them, three women and one man. A mangy dog with a bloody muzzle was growling at them from the corner they had backed it into. D looked over and saw two corpses on the ground, deep bite wounds leaving their heads hanging loosely to the rest of their bodies. She signaled to Butch to just take out the raiders, she’d get down there and finish them off.

He shot with some measure of control, managing to finish one of the women. Delia put one out of his misery after the dog ripped his calf off. The other two were finished in a stunning group effort that consisted mostly of the dog ripping healthy pieces of raider free from their bodies. Their screams were drowned out by the snarling of the dog.

Delia looked at the dog, and he stared right back at her. She swallowed thickly as she examined him from her distance. A dirty German Shepherd with different eyes. Butch dropped down next to her and aimed his gun at the dog.

The dog snarled, his bloody muzzle pulling back to reveal fierce canines dripping with pink saliva. D put a hand on Butch’s arm, pushing the gun to the ground. The dog visibly relaxed at that, but Butch bristled.

“C’mon D, you saw it waste those other guys! Just kill it already,” he grumbled, gun shaking slightly. He still wasn’t steady enough with it. Or he needed a smoke. Probably both.

“No wait, I’ve definitely seen this dog before,” she said, crouching down and approaching the animal slowly. He didn’t snap at her, but he did fall back into a defensive stance. His hackles were raised, but he didn’t snarl, just bared his teeth slightly in silence.

“D, don’t _touch_ it, you’ll get bit and fuckin’ die,” Butch said anxiously. He still had his gun trained on the dog and he took notice, eyes darting from Delia to her companion as he tried to focus on both threats at once.

“Butch, put it away,” she snapped. “C’mere little guy,” she said to the dog, offering her hand for him to sniff. He took her offering only after Butch put his gun back in its holster. “Aww, who’s a good doggie,” she said in a gooey voice, reaching her other hand around slowly to pat at him. She scratched his ears while he gave her hand a tentative lick. Dog saliva mingled with the blood and sweat on her Pip-boy glove.

Butch scoffed behind her and she turned to look at him, an eyebrow raised. He made a face at her. “All the other dogs we’ve seen have been feral, D.”

“Hush, Butch,” she responded, turning back to the dog. She ran one hand over his ribs, feeling each one poking out from his skin. “Gimme a can of cram and a bottle of water.”

“Oh, _fuck_ \--”

_“Do it.”_

She didn’t turn to him, but she knew the face he was making. He was mad at her for giving him an order, _he’s_ the Serpent King, he doesn’t take orders from nobody. Hell, she’s lucky he even listens to her, he used to call the shots.

He handed her the can and water, and she opened the meat for the dog. It fell onto the ground in a bright pink clump, but he snapped it up hungrily. She poured the water out into a small puddle, the dog lapping it up eagerly. When he finished, she asked Butch for another can. He produced it and the dog repeated.

When he finished, he sniffed at D’s face and gave her a lick, his long tail wagging lazily. She gave a surprised laugh, grabbing at the scruff around his neck and rubbing it. He made a pleased sound and hopped up a little to lick her again.

She stood and pet him evenly over his back, beckoning Butch to come over. He approached warily, his face saying he was still afraid of getting bit. But Tunnel Snakes weren’t afraid of nothin’, so D remained silent.

The dog’s ribs poked hungrily through his skin. The fur was patchy and his eyes were mismatched and shiny. D ran her hands over his neck, feeling the coarse hemp rope around it.

“You look like the dog from the junkyard,” she mumbled to the animal as she turned the collar around to look at the dented metal tag on it. She turned it up towards the sun, the surface glinting dully in the setting red light. It looked like an old pre-war military dogtag that some poor asshole lost. It was evident that the old name had been either worn away from years of disuse or just buffed out. Whatever had been there before had been replaced with crude spiky letters spelling out _Dogmeat_.

“You seen him before?” Butch asked as he leaned over her. His body blocked part of the setting sun and the worn metal tag stopped winking.

“Yeah, I think so,” she replied, standing. She brushed her knees off and looked at the dog. He stared back.

“He’s comin’ with us, ain’t he?”

D smiled at how resigned he sounded. “From the way he’s looking at us, I’d say yes.”

He groaned, she laughed, and the dog barked.

* * *

 

The dog proved himself more useful than Butch. He was faster and killed with a more brutal efficiency than Butch was capable of. He didn’t balk at the massive green mutants and he was too fast to shoot,  blur of matted brown that pulled the supermutants apart viciously. He was smart enough to stay quiet when D said to, and he was wonderfully warm at night. The days were still blistering, but the nights had begun to have a creeping chill to them. He also had the habit of bringing her things he thought she would like, no doubt a talent his poor master rotting in that DC junkyard appreciated greatly.

More than a week but not quite two since Dogmeat had landed himself with D, he brought her back a baseball that he deemed interesting enough for her to examine. Both her and Butch grimaced as he dropped it at her feet, tail wagging.

“Looks fuckin’ gross,” Butch commented as D bent over to pick it up. He watched over her shoulder as she turned it over in her hands.

She could feel how close he was even through the layers of armor, heat radiating out from him to her. The closeness was something like comforting to her, so she didn’t move away. “It’s just a baseball,” she said blankly.

And it was. Ancient and covered in saliva, and completely unremarkable. It was the standard brand, and D recalled every ball, bat, and glove in 101 being branded with the same exact logo. The plastic leather of the ball might have been white 200 years before, but it was surprising it was even still clinging to whatever was inside a baseball.

“I think he wants to play fetch, D,” Butch sniggered. He reached over her and took it, the tips of his fingers brushing lightly over her hand.

“Don’t throw it!” she blurted out, grabbing it away from him. He made a face at her, trickles of worry in his blue eyes. Maybe he was afraid he set her off, the same way landmines and frag grenades did. Maybe the baseball was going to be added to the pile of shit even she didn’t understand why she carried around.

“You alright?” he asked quietly and her heart wrenched.

“I’m fine,” she said softly, eyes flitting from the ball to his face. He looked concerned and it set her stomach roiling. Whether it was concern or fear, it didn’t matter, he shouldn’t be feeling _anything_ like that because of her.

He drew his hand away from her and she felt _something_ at the loss.

“It feels like a sign,” she said, clearing her throat. She found the courage to turn her eyes from where they had fallen to the ball back to his face. “I was commune MVP, remember?”

He snickered at that, worry finally bleeding from his features to be replaced by the maddening smirk he almost always had on. “I remember when you put a fucking hole through Stanley’s window and he yelled at you for an hour.”

“I can’t help it if I have a strong arm,” she sniffed, turning away from him. The sudden rush of affection she had felt for him earlier seemed stupider now in the face of his infuriating, well, _everything_.

“You’re maybe a little freakishly strong,” he mumbled, pulling a cigarette out.

She frowned and reached out to pet Dogmeat. “Such a good doggie!” she said, sickeningly sweet. He looked up at her with shiny eyes, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. “You bring me things at the _best_ times, boy.”

He licked at her hand, sniffed her, and then licked again. She giggled, high and girly, and heard Butch snort behind her. She turned to him and a made a face; he just didn’t understand what it was like to actually be loved by something else.

She tossed the ball in the air and caught it. It might’ve been ancient, but the stitching was still strong. The dull logo blinked at her through the layers of dirt and age, and she stared right back. Contemplating this relic of her childhood, some things just didn’t seem so large or scary anymore. She stared for about as long as it took Butch to finish a cigarette, turning the muddy brown ball around in her hand.

Butch put a hand on her shoulder and asked if she was okay, though there was less sincerity in his voice than before. It was more accurate to say he was being an _ass_ , but Delia had a hard time trying to remember a time his head wasn’t lodged firmly up his _own_ ass.

“I’m just great,” she murmured. His hand felt heavy on her shoulder, but it was solid, something grounding about it. She tossed the ball one more time in the air and caught it. Her eyes turned up towards Butch to find him looking at her curiously. “We’re gonna go see my dad.”

* * *

 

“What do you _mean_ , he isn’t here?” D blurted, voice a shrill screech. She lunged forward towards Doctor Li, not quite knowing what she was going to do, but Butch grabbed her. He wasn’t strong enough to stop her if she had really been intent on harm, but she calmed slightly under his touch.

“Well, it looks like he’s abandoned you too kid, and me a second time,” the good doctor said, taking a step away from Delia. She smoothed a hand over her lab coat and narrowed her eyes at the pair of dust-covered kids. “He’s like that, your father. He never thinks of what effects his actions will have on others, he just _does it_!”

“Don’t talk about my father that way,” D seethed, still fuming. She registered Butch’s arms still around her midsection, pressing her breasts into her chest uncomfortably. She thrashed like a petulant child to get him to drop her, gauntlet clicking with her ferocity.

He dropped her and Li backed up, fear flashing up sudden and gripping, and D took no small amount of pleasure at seeing it in the old woman’s face. Her small brown eyes flicked to Butch. “You’re going to let her hurt me?” she asked, a hand going to rub at the base of her throat.

D felt him shrug, and her chest swelled. He let out an infuriating scoff that was markedly _less_ infuriating when it wasn’t directed at her. “Trust me, I couldn’t stop her even if I wanted to, and I _ain’t_ suicidal.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” D snapped, breathing deeply, trying will the fury from her body. If she was being honest with herself, she wasn’t really that mad at Li. No, it was anger at herself for finally thinking she’d found her father and of _course_ he wasn’t here. She had just kept her and Butch out in the wasteland for a fucking month because she was scared to go to a giant rusted out ship that was short one ex-doctor.

“Good, that’s… good,” Li said, rubbing her throat anxiously. Venom seeped back into her face and posture soon enough, and she turned towards D. “Look, your father just came here after being gone for eighteen years, and he thinks that he can suddenly come back and everything can go back to the way it used to be? Before _you_ came?”

Shame welled up, hot and fuzzy inside of D. Her ears felt hot and her face burned, small tears of anxiety pricking at her eyes. “This isn’t my fault,” she said in a thin, quiet voice. She felt Butch step towards her and relaxed a bit.

Li considered her for a moment. “No, that was unfair. I’m sorry, it’s just… he was gone for _so long_. And then he just showed up again, I half thought the air filtration here had broken again and it was some sort of drug-induced dream.”

D looked at her silently before turning away. Her eyes drifted to the pile of fruits and vegetables sprawled across the table and raises an eyebrow at Li.

The good doctor’s face broke out in a mottled blush, face hardening and growing defensive. “See, this is why I turned him down! What I’m doing _now_ is real and tangible and is actually helping people. I had grand ideas of cleaning up all the poor junkies and sick kids out there, but they were just _ideas_. James is still thinking like he did twenty years ago. Between radiation and chemical contamination, most of the ground and water around DC isn’t safe to use for anything; just living there can kill you. I’ll bet you’ve never even seen a real apple before, just that freeze-dried, candied crap in those boxes.”

D shrugged and turned to look at Butch. “You give a shit about apples?”

One side of his mouth pulled up into a grin, eyes bright. “Nah, the peels always got stuck in my teeth.”

D pivoted to look at Li. “See? I don’t give a shit about apples either.”

Li made a noise of disgust and frowned at Delia. “Typical kids. Fine, do whatever you want, go find your father. He went to the old base at the Jefferson Memorial, probably to try and hit those synthesizers to see if maybe they’d improved with age.” She paused and sighed, her eyes rolling slightly at Delia. “And stop looking at me like that. That’s the face he always used to make at me.”

D let the expression drop from her face and turned to leave. She was tugging on Butch’s elbow and they nearly hooked arms together before she stopped, suddenly painfully conscious of the other people in the room. Still, she moved with him towards the door, and the good doctor waited until Butch was outside the porthole before calling after her.

“If you _do_ find him, let me know if he’s alright?” she asked, voice afflicted with a slight tremor.

D turned to look at her and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, _fine_ ,” she muttered before shoving Butch out of her way and stalking down the hallway.

Her heavy boots reverberated off the walls, everything echoing all at once. Butch kept an easy pace next to her, though the hallways were too narrow for him to walk beside her without having to dodging stationary objects and other people. She walked, not really caring where she was going for nearly ten minutes before Butch grabbed her by the shoulder and stopped her.

D shoved him off with a vicious snarl, still angry. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed, straightening her jacket.

Butch wasn’t demure and cowardly until his safety had been confirmed, like Li was. He grabbed her arm again and tugged her roughly, upsetting her balance enough that she crashed into him.

“Don’t be a _fuckin’_ ass, D!” he half-yelled at her.

She felt stupid with her face pressed awkwardly against his riot gear and him glowering down at her. Her body slackened for a split second before she tensed up again, shoving herself away from him. He didn’t try to pull her back, but he stood there, body a massive menace that blocked out the hollow light in the narrow hallway.

She hated him completely and entirely for a split second. Everything from how he filled her vision to his stupid face had her contemplating the best ways to just murder him so she wouldn’t have to look _up_ at him anymore. He could move her like a ragdoll and she always just fucking let him, but she was stronger, she could fight him off so easily. She hated how she felt like he was her responsibility and she hated how he was her only choice, and she hated how her father had forced them together when they were kids.

And then, it just left. Her posture changed and she wrapped her arms around herself, hatred for Butch ebbing away while anger at her father and herself boiled up. She took a deep, shuddering breath and held it in.

“Aw, _shit_ ,” she heard Butch mutter and he wasn’t imposing or blocking the light anymore. He put tentative arms around her shoulders and she leaned slightly into the awkward embrace. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for her.

“I’m sorry I yelled, just, look--I’m upset,” she managed. Her nose was squished into his chest and his arms became more comfortable around her shoulders, she was _so_ grateful that he didn’t start acting horrible.

“It’s fine, D,” he mumbled, sounding uncomfortable, but she didn’t care. He’d asked to come along with her and he’d _stayed_ , he had to be able to deal with what that meant to her.

Clothes ruffled nearby as someone walked past. She jerked away from him, face burning at her sudden display of raw emotion. He coughed awkwardly and brought a hand to smooth over his hair.

D looked from him to her shoes for what felt like an eternity before Butch suggested that they go liberate Dogmeat from their room at the Weatherly. She agreed hastily, making her way through the confusing hallways at a breakneck pace. The galley was surprisingly empty, though it was later at night. The two of them had had to wake up Vera to request a room, and she hadn’t been too pleased to see the two wastelanders at nearly 2 AM.

They were almost to the Weatherly when an _extremely_ old man bumped into her roughly.

“Excuse you!” Delia exclaimed as he gave her a dirty look for having the audacity to be in his way.

“ _I_ was not in the way, girl,” he said. His face was a horrible net of wrinkles and superiority. The man who stood behind him was large and menacing, his eyes small and sharp, mouth a grim line.

D frowned at him and rolled her eyes, about to leave before he cleared his throat at her.

“Yes?” she asked. She could hear Butch shuffle a bit behind her and she knew his stance had changed.

“You’re not from around here,” the old man said. His eyes traveled over her in a way that made her want to take a shower.

“And?”

“I need your help with something important, something that I wouldn’t trust to the yokels on this rust heap.” He crossed his arms over his chest and pursed his lips. Though he was maybe only an inch or two taller than D, he managed to look down at her.

Butch scoffed behind her as she considered the old man. _He looks like a prune, and he’s probably just as sour._ “You have a name?” she asked, mimicking his stance.

“I am Doctor Zimmer, and this is my bodyguard, Armitage. You see, I’ve lost something of great importance and need it back. I know that it is here somewhere, but I just can’t get these _locals_ to tell me where, as if any of them are even smart enough to,” he said, disgust mounting with every word. His voice dripped like battery acid and his words seemed to be punctuated by a kind of acerbic contempt.

D rolled her eyes at him and shifted her weight. “You want me to go play lost and found for something? It is the middle of the night and you want me to go find, what? Your dog? Your Mister Handy that wandered away from you? Put up a missing sign and just get over it,” she said, irritated.

Zimmer’s watery eyes flashed angrily at her arrogance. Armitage moved closer to him and D had the sudden feeling that they _weren’t_ safe to be insulting. “You need to learn some manners,” he sneered. D didn’t respond, but Butch started laughing. When Zimmer and Armitage both turned to look at him it quickly turned into coughs.

They both glared until Butch fell silent and D’s temper was seething over. Zimmer turned to look at D, though his bodyguard kept his unblinking eyes on Butch. “It’s not one of those floating piles of scrap, it’s so much better than that. I’m looking for an escaped android that thinks it’s human. I need it back before it breaks itself or harms anyone around it.”

“You want me to track down some guy who looks _entirely_ human and even _thinks_ he’s human and bring him to you?” D asked, eyebrow raising and voice dropping.

Zimmer’s beady eyes narrowed. “ _It_ is not human, nor will _it_ ever be. Everyone in this boat is at risk until I find it and bring it back.”

“And why hasn’t anyone here helped you?”

“They are incompetent,” he said quickly, an ugly red spreading on his face. “The only one worth talking to is Doctor Li and they won’t let me speak to her.”

D snorted. “So you’re trying to get me to do your dirty work? No thanks.” She turned to Butch. “C’mon, I need to go to sleep.”

Zimmer didn’t call after her, but she could feel his anger at being brushed off so casually. Butch kept his easy pace next to her as they wandered back to the room. D stewed in her thoughts of her father and the numerous cassette tapes she had found. At this point, she had three. A nagging suspicion in the back of her head was replaying the tapes, telling her that they and this Zimmer were connected.

She unlocked her room and Dogmeat bounded out to meet her. He wasn’t big enough to knock her clean over, but she stumbled, laughter bubbling out of her.

“Who’s a good boy?” she asked, all sweet.

Dogmeat gave a short bark, tail wagging furiously and banging against Butch’s leg.

Her smile grew as she rubbed his head. “That’s right! _You_ are!”

“Alright, this is gonna make me sick, get in the room,” Butch said, shoving one hand into his pocket and pointing into the room with the other.

She pouted but went in anyway, Dogmeat following her in. Delia sat on the bed, the springs protesting violently as the dog jumped up after her. She looked at the armor she had discarded in the room earlier when they had first walked in and thought about how much it would cost to repair. Butch peeled his riot gear off and tossed it next to her own before taking a seat in the beat-up chair.

“Fuckin’ springs, stickin’ me and shit,” he complained as one of the exposed cushion springs stabbed him. He stuck a hand under himself and ripped it free, the chair screeching out.

D frowned at him. “Don’t break that, I’m gonna have to pay for it.”

“What?” he asked, destroyed spring in hand. “I fixed this thing, how many people do ya think this thing has stabbed?”

“It’s still coming out of your caps if she makes us pay for it.”

“Fine, whatever,” he mumbled, dropping it to the floor. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and looked at D questioningly.

“Oh no, we’re not adding smoke damage to that poor chair,” she said. “Take it outside if you wanna smoke.”

“It’s _so far, Dee_ ,” he whined but he stood nonetheless.

“Can’t you just go to sleep?”

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “I needa smoke or else I’ll be up all night.”

She watched him pat his pockets and curse before he started rummaging around in his pack. “ _Every_ night?” she asked. Dogmeat whuffed next to her and she resumed petting him.

He looked at her as he bent over the bag. “Yeah, _every_ night. You never noticed? We were in the fuckin’ ruins together for a month.”

D shrugged at him. “I never thought about it, I guess.” She remembered him though, with his shaking hands and how he paced. She knew what he did when he disappeared behind those pieces of wall every night, but it never registered.

“And here I thought you were smart,” he said. He made a noise of triumph as he stood with his pack of cigarettes. He walked to the porthole door and turned back to D. “If ya go to bed, just leave the door unlocked so I’m not sitting out here all night.”

He stepped out and she stood up. “Wait,” she said as she brushed her clothes off. “I’ll come with you.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her and _that grin_ spread out across his face. Dogmeat hopped off and loped after her as she followed him outside to the railing of the ship. Harkness eyed them as they passed, but didn’t comment. None of them wanted trouble and he seemed to be able to tell.

Outside, the moon was high in the sky, big and round like it was the day Delia crawled out of 101 the second time. In the distance, pines stood tall and proud, shivering in the wind. Closer to the ship, the river ran lazily. Pieces of old buildings crumbled into it, ancient walls giving way to the years as they collapsed under their own weight.

She heard Butch’s lighter click and a flame spit up. She turned to look at him and saw him leaning over the railing of the ship, moonlight shining from behind his face. The cigarette lit up brightly as he sucked the smoke in and held it.

D sighed as she looked at him, heart softening as she looked at his face. It was darker with more sunburn and freckles than she remembered and he looked older. He had grown worry lines and a new light scar where a bullet had grazed his face. She caught herself chuckling at the remembered relief that he was fine and his half-assed complaints that he was too pretty for a scar.

He looked at her, though, and the moment was gone. He wasn’t illuminated by the moon anymore and his faced looked the same as it had before. He was just Butch.

“You laughin’ at somethin’?” he asked, smoke still clinging to air around him.

“Yeah, _you_ ,” she said, small giggles still slipping out.

“Yeah, well, I ain’t funny.” Another drag that he released through his nose. “Why’d ya come out here, huh?”

D shrugged and looked down at where Dogmeat had draped himself over her feet. “I guess I just wanted to see what the appeal was.”

That half-grin sprang up again, one side of his face lifting in _that_ smile. “It’s relaxing and besides, I _like_ it.”

“It’s bad for you, Butch.”

“You tell me every fuckin’ day, D.”

“Fine, but when you get sick, don’t come to me.”

“I’m not gettin’ sick, D, Jesus.”

“Yeah, whatever, Butchie,” she said as she rolled her eyes. If she squinted, she could just make out the shape of the water beggar as he sat hunched over in the dark. She should’ve brought some water with her, she still had at least eight bottles, she could spare some more for him.

“You know,” Butch said around a mouthful of smoke, “I was actually scared you were gonna put your fist through her head.”

“Li?” D asked, but she knew.

“Shit yeah, you looked like you wanted to kill her, and she looked ready to shit herself.”

D rolled her eyes and leaned over the railing with him. “No I didn’t. I’m not that intimidating, Butch.”

He snorted a little too hard at what she said and started coughing at all the smoke. D struck him hard on the back and he glared at her, eyes watering. She grinned back sheepishly and he looked away, straightening up as he tried to get his lungs under control. “See, this is what I’m talkin’ about,” he wheezed.

“I could have just saved your life, for all you know,” D sniffed as she leaned against the railing. Dogmeat whuffed at her having upset his comfortable position.

“ _Fuck_ , D, I think ya broke my back.” He bent back and D heard his spine crack as he pushed it back into place.

“Oh, please, you’re made of wet tissue paper,” she said, light tone hiding her shame for having hurt him. She knew she was strong, she just forgot it a lot. It was hard keeping it under control when how hard she hit decided whether or not she lived or died almost every day.

“The pitchin’ machine back in 101 had a weaker arm than you,” he grumbled. He stepped on the butt of the cigarette and looked up at the sky.

D felt bad for him, for a moment. He looked some kind of upset as he stared up at the moon and stars. “You know,” she said, sidling closer to him. “You never do get used to they sky looking like that.”

“It’s so fucked up, 101 was _so fucked up_ , D,” he said, turning to look down at her.

She bumped him with her shoulder, warm in spite of the chilly autumn air. “Yeah, but you can’t do anything about it. I mean, you have to accept that and move on.”

“Remember the day you got out?”

She nodded, throat tightening so she couldn’t say anything.

He turned to look back out over the Potomac. “Your dad crawled out and suddenly everythin’ went to shit, ya know?” He gave a short laugh. “We didn’t even know what the fuck was happening, I was just in detention with you, then I got sprung, and then all the security was out and shit, beating _those things_.” He shuddered at the memory of the radroaches.

“They’re called radroaches, Butch,” D said, not unkindly. She reached out and hesitated before placing a hand on his arm.

He looked at her hand on his jacket, but didn’t shake her off. She could have sworn she saw him blushing, but it was dark out and he began to fumble for a cigarette and his lighter.

“Thanks again for gettin’ my ma out of there,” he mumbled around a cigarette as he lit it.

D shrugged. “No problem. Though she probably would have been fine. It was just the principal’s office, I doubt security would have done anything to her.”

“Yeah but like, she was...” he said, juggling his words. He made some sort of hand gesture that was supposed to convey what he was trying to say, but D pretended not to understand.

She took pity on him though, after he tried to stammer out a pleasant way to put it.

“ _Drunk_ , Butch. She was drunk.”

He nodded, face blushing. He wasn’t angry, she could tell; he was _ashamed_.

“Yeah. And she still was when ya came and busted us out,” he said. “Look, I really don’t know how to put this…” A hand went to the back of his head and ran over his hair.

She squeezed the hand on his arm. “It’s fine, I get it.” _Thank you for opening 101._

“I’m sorry it all happened that way, D.”

Her breath caught in her throat and her ears burned. _I’m sorry_ , he said. Butch Deloria was expressing sympathy and it was almost too much. She had heard it correctly, _I’m sorry_. _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry_.

“It’s fine,” she murmured. _I’m sorry._ “I get it.”

He nodded at her and that was all she needed. _I’m sorry._

They turned back inside soon after Butch finished his second cigarette. Hardly anyone was up this late at night, it was nearing 3 AM, and D was dreading getting up in the morning. Dogmeat padded softly next to her, his claws making small _tings_ against the metal floors.

In the room, he sat on the mattress while she stood there nervously.

“Ya good, D?” he asked, prying his shoes off.

“You think Li was really afraid of me?” she blurted, fidgeting with the zipper of her jacket.

“What?”

“I mean--it’s just--I wasn’t _going_ to hurt her,” she stammered out. She took a deep breath and ruffled her hair. “I’m not that intimidating, people try to walk all over me all the time.”

He snorted. “Are ya really worried what she thinks of you?”

She sighed, shaking her head. “Not her. When I find my dad-- _if_ he’s even at the memorial--what will he think? He knows me, what will he see?”

Silence stretched on as they looked at each other. His eyes seemed to be looking for something to see that wasn’t her. She was searching his face for some sort of validation, looking to his sunburn and freckles for a confirmation that she wasn’t a bad person.

“I don’t know,” he said eventually, tugging his other shoe off. He sighed and scooted over on the mattress. An invitation.

She sat down next to him and the dog jumped right up with her. Butch rolled his eyes while she buried her hands in Dogmeat’s fur, happy for the soft distraction.

“I ain’t exactly the best person to be askin’ about this crap, D,” he said softly. She looked and saw him watching her as she rubbed Dogmeat.

“Yeah, but you’re _someone_. Butch, you and my dad are the only people this side of paradise who actually _know_ me. Well, as good as either of you know me, I guess.” She sighed and held Dogmeat’s face, looking at his mismatched eyes.

“I’ve known ya since we were kids.”

“Butch, let’s be real here. This past month aside, I hadn’t spent any significant amount of time with you since we were 16.”

He was quiet at that, and she was grateful for it. Weeks ago, she might have been worried that he would fight her, or say something rude. Those days in the DC ruins had done something to not just him, but her as well. His frayed anger was under control and she wasn’t so goddamned afraid of dying anymore.

Delia counted seven minutes before Butch cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t get too worked up about it,” he said. He was close behind her, and some part in the back of her mind whispered, _Too close_ , but then another told her that it wasn’t discomfort that seized her when he stood near. It was that familiarity and safety and closeness that you could only get from some sort of _friend_.

She nodded. “There’s no point to it.”

He put a hand on her shoulder, solid and grounding. She released a pent up breath and shifted to the head of the mattress. She apologized for Vera not giving them another bed and he just shrugged.

“It’ll be like those times we found the big mattresses in DC,” D said in an attempt to lighten the mood she had cast earlier.

“Just keep ya hands yourself,” he said. He gave her that cheeky smirk and she smiled back. It was nice, not having any malice towards him at the moment. It was like when they were kids, except it _wasn’t_. It was… good.

“Goodnight, Butch,” she said, lying down on her side of the bed. She reached up and turned the lamp off, drifting off to an easy, dreamless sleep with Butch’s back nearly pressed against hers the entire night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man sorry this took so long, the new dragon age game came out and i've finally been released from its clutches
> 
> anyway, we've gotten a lot of new followers at the blog, but still no comments! i know you guys are reading and we'd really love some feedback to get a sense if we're going in the right direction and if people like what we're putting out
> 
> so [here's the blog](http://darlingdelia.tumblr.com), and feel free to shoot us a question or comment!


	7. There Are Worse Things I Could Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> However nice that idea _sounded_ though, it was some sort of fun walking around looking with Butch. Hearing the rumors about the haunted broken bow, the screams and footsteps people heard, the mysterious disappearance of Pinkerton, it was _fun_. He cracked jokes and poked her in the ribs as they walked around, everything so easy and light. That grin was on his face the whole time, lips pulled into a smirk. The constant questions she had to ask everyone left her wanting to pull her hair out, but he made it _better_ , easier to deal with. He was good at being a distraction, wasn’t as useless as he seemed.

**Chapter 7: There Are Worse Things I Could Do**

D woke up the next morning with her face right up against Butch’s back. It was warm and the texture of his shirt was impressed into her face, her eyes blinking blearily as she pressed her face closer for a moment before she realized _where she was_.

She recoiled sharply, face burning as she pulled away the arm she had managed to drape over him. Her skin prickled everywhere and burned horribly, shame and embarrassment pounding along with her heart. The air was too thick and this was _probably_ what having a heart attack felt like, but she could've been wrong. She covered her face with one hand while she breathed in, jumping slightly when she felt Dogmeat shift on the bed.

The air was stiff as she held her breath, waiting to see if Butch would wake up. When he remained snoring, she sighed and reached out for the dog, those mismatched eyes blinking open at her. “Such a sweet doggie,” she murmured as his tongue lazily slid out to lick her hand. It was warm and rough, the feeling helping to calm her down.

Scratching around his ears, she rubbed her eyes with her other hand for a moment before checking the time on her Pip-boy. Four minutes before her alarm was scheduled to go off. Just wonderful.

She turned it off and got up, Dogmeat stretching before bounding down after her. The mattress’ squeaks of protest woke Butch, who rolled over with a groan before promptly complaining about how early it was. D rolled her eyes and flicked a light on, Butch groaning again and throwing an arm over his eyes.

“It’s too bright,” he whined, curling onto his side.

“Get used to it,” D snapped, limbs still tingling from the panic of being so close to him.

He groaned but didn’t complain again, instead squeezing his eyes shut and pressing them in with the heels of his hands. D felt herself soften just a bit as she watched him, her words not as harsh when she told him what they were doing that day.

“You mean I gotta give my jacket up to those grease monkeys?” he huffed as she separated the items they were selling from the ones they were keeping. Jet, med-x, buffout, and whiskey for the doctor, all other alcohol for the Muddy Rudder, and extra ammunition and guns for Flak and Shrapnel were pushed into a pile on the bed.

“As charming as it is with the bullet holes and mutant entrails, I want us to look put together for once,” she said, looking around for something to sweep the pile into. “Hand me your bag.”

He tossed it to her and watched as she filled it. “What are we gonna do here all day, then?”

“Well, I thought we could piss off the police chief and then maybe sick Dogmeat on Li.” She pulled the string on the pack and set it down next to her own. “We would need our vests in case Harkness decided to shoot us for causing trouble, though,” she muttered, brushing her fingers over her severely dented riot gear.

“So we’re not gonna do anythin’ all day,” he said, groaning.

“You’re an adult, Butch, I don’t give a fuck what you do.”

"You're on my ass over _everythin_ ' I do, D."

There was a smirk on his face when she glanced over at him. "You make terrible decisions, you would've died _so_ long ago if I hadn't stopped you from doing half the dumb shit you wanted to."

"Calm down, kid," he said lazily. He tried to jam his hands in his pockets and shrugged it off when he realized his jacket was gone.

"I'm only six months younger than you," she huffed. _And I’m a bigger adult than you fucking are._

He watched her pull the bag with what they were selling up while she set her own with what they were keeping on the floor. Falling into step next to her as she left the room, he stayed as far apart from her as the narrow hallways would allow. “So are we gonna _do_ anything?”

The fast clicking of Dogmeat’s nails rang softly in the hallway as D considered the fact that she had free time. “I should see if I can learn about the history of this place,” she said, shifting the bag in her grasp. The bottles inside sloshed around as she jostled them. Vera waved as they passed and D nodded at her.

Butch snorted, his footsteps heavy and ringing in skinny hall. “D, I really don’t think you should be doin’ anythin’ she asks ya to.”

“This is the safest thing she’s asked me to do, actually,” she replied absently. They had come to the main hull, the flickering lights and stale smell not as bad as they would be later in the day. She set the pack on the table at Flak n Shrapnel’s, fought with them over the price of repairing their gear for a few moments before she left the armor, weapons, and jackets there. They would be ready tomorrow.

“Nothin’ she asks could be safe,” he said, starting up again as soon as they were walking over to the Muddy Rudder. “She’s nuts, she’ll probably turn you into some freaky science experiment after she gets everythin’ she wants.”

D smiled at Belle, ignoring Butch as he rifled around in the pack to save some alcohol before she sold it all. The old woman just looked back, face wrinkled and unflinching. “I hate to say Moira’s already made me into an experiment,” D muttered to Butch, unloading bottles so she wouldn’t have to look at the woman. Slapping Butch’s hands away as he tried to sneak a few bottles aside, she glared at him. “No, we’re _selling_ these!”

“I’m just thinking about later when we're gonna have nothin’ to do,” he grumbled but relented, backing away from the bar.

"We can find something else to do," she muttered, ordering the bottles for Belle.

He waited for her to finish with Belle before he came close again. "I ain't readin' books with you."

"I wasn't going to suggest _that_ ," she said, offended. Crossing, she sold the chems not for Dr. Preston to Cindy, pressing down the sick feeling she got for it. Caps bought stimpaks and food, though, something they desperately needed more of after a month in DC. Shoving aside her morals was worth keeping them alive.

“What else is there? Go for a swim?” he asked with a snort. He started patting his pockets as they walked towards the medical bay.

“ _No_ ,” she said, annoyed at how dismissive he was being. She flexed her hands for something to do, ignoring the sick feeling that welled up at the lack of the weight of her gauntlet. He had been softer yesterday, not so _him_ as he had tried in his own faltering way to console her. It seemed he was back to being the worst, though. “I was thinking we could look into what that asshole Zimmer asked us to do last night.”

His eyebrows shot up, face surprised as he looked down at her. “Ya really gonna do somethin’ for that shithead?”

“I’m saying we can look into it,” she snapped. Dogmeat whined softly at her heels, nails still clicking as he shuffled in place. She bent down to pet him, his mismatched eyes shiny. “The people in the city aren’t safe while he’s still here.”

“So is D to the rescue again?”

She straightened and looked at him sideways. They were right outside the medical bay door, the fluorescent lights casting green and sick down Butch’s face, but he didn’t look particularly mean. _Tell me something terrible_ , she thought as she looked up at him. “You wanted something to do. Here it is.” _Prove me wrong for thinking you’d changed._

“Guess it couldn’t hurt,” he mumbled, looking away. After a moment he cleared his throat and jerked his head at the door. “Go sell that shit so I can go have a smoke.”

She felt herself soften at him. “You can go without me, you don’t have to wait.”

“Just go, Nosebleed,” he said, slipping easily into his old habits. “I don’t want ya tearin’ the ship apart to find me.”

She rolled her eyes but went inside, selling the items quickly and cleaning out Dr. Preston’s supply of stimpaks. A few rolls of gauze and three extra bottles of whiskey that he couldn’t afford later, and she was on her way when she started asking him about Zimmer. Curiously, he handed her another holotape about it. Added to her growing pile, she had three of them now and she left with the promise to see what they were all about.

Walking out of the clinic, she found Butch petting Dogmeat quietly in the hall.

“Playing nice?” she asked, voice smug as she crossed her arms.

Butch _almost_ jumped a foot in the air, but he was just shy of it. “Holy _fuck_ , D, ya gonna give me a heart attack,” he said, a shaking hand dragging down his face.

She bent down and rubbed the dog’s face, his eyes closing. “You’ll be fine, big guy,” she said to Butch. “Let’s go out for a bit.”

He cursed again but nodded, a heavy blush on his sun-freckled face. Starting down the hall, he took a few deep breaths before he jerked his chin at the holotape she was still holding. “Another _essential_?”

“It’s another one of those tapes,” she murmured, turning it over in her hands.

“Give it here.”

She handed it over silently. He tripped over the lip of a porthole as he looked, swearing quietly. D smothered the giggle that bubbled up, feigning a cough when he looked down at her. The hallways stretched ahead and they were almost to the main hull of the ship, the sound from the marketplace drifting through the rusted-out walls. They stopped outside the door, Butch tossing the cassette and catching it before handing it to Delia.

“This is probably something to do with what that asshole asked ya to do last night,” he said.

“I figured as much,” she said with a snort.

“So you’ve got a robot who thinks it's human and some old prune who wants it back to do whatever to it, right?” They stepped into the marketplace, walking quickly through as a large man in overalls glared at them from the Muddy Rudder. A woman with quick eyes snapped to watch them as they passed, D’s face burning from her gaze.

“That seems to be gist of it, yeah,” she replied absently, tugging Butch along as he sneered back at the man.

He let himself get pulled but glared back until they were clear of the market. “So you wanna find this robot?” He pulled his arm out of her hand and tried to straighten his jacket out of reflex. Embarrassed, he looked around as he slid his hands into his pants pockets when he noticed the jacket was gone.

The main stairwell was close, the distant sound of the Potomac rushing below resonating through the walls. “Yeah, I mean we should let him _know_ he’s being hunted--” she said, starting to open the door to the main stairwell. A woman cut her off, voice shrill and ringing through the metal ship.

“Wait!” she yelled, Dogmeat jumping at the sound.

They both turned to look at her, the woman nearly slamming into them as she rushed through the porthole they had just come out of. Her quick eyes landed right on the holotape in D’s hands then snapped to her face, gaze piercing. She launched right into what was surely a speech she’d had ready for a while. It sounded practiced, fast, her words coming before either of her captives could say anything.

After a full three minutes, D rolled her eyes. “Just stop it!” she snapped, her arms going up in the air. The holotape made a hollow noise as she accidentally tapped it against the porthole frame.

The woman, in fact, did not stop it. “Surely you have to see how wrong it is to keep a man as _property_ \--”

“Who even are you?”

“Victoria Watts,” she answered quickly, leaning back.

D looked up at Butch. His hands were preoccupied with flicking and pushing a cigarette back into the carton, the fluorescent lights blinking overhead. Turning back to Victoria, she crossed her arms over her chest. “You can calm down, I’m not gonna sell your android to Zimmer.” _I’m not as huge of a monster as everyone seems to think_.

“That’s not _good_ _enough_. You’re putting so many people in danger, android and human alike just by asking about it.”

“Get on it with it, then,” D said with a sigh. Resignation to being used felt written all over her features, a day never passing without _someone_ needing something. “What do you want me to do?”

That seemed to be the answer she was looking for, the one she expected. She pulled a crushed metal box with wires poking out of it from her pocket and held it out. “Here. Take this and give it to Zimmer. Tell him the android is dead and he’ll leave the ship.”

D took it and turned it over in her hands, the acrid smell of metal reaching her. “And what if I tell Zimmer what you just told me?” _I could fuck you all up so badly_.

She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back, eyes narrowing as she considered what D had just said. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

“We’ll have you removed from the city before you do that, then,” she said with a shrug. It seemed real, but the suspicion that it was all affected crept up the back of Delia’s neck. “It’s your choice, kid.”

“Fine,” she snapped, dropping the android piece into her bag. “Is there anything else I can do for you?” she asked, words dripping and an angry sneer on her face.

“Yes, the _right thing_ ,” she said emphatically before turning around and walking away. Those words were probably meant to shame her into doing the right thing, steer her in the best direction, but all it earned was a groan from her and Butch.

“Drama queen,” Butch muttered as he watched her leave.

“You’re one to talk.” D sighed and rubbed her head, temples suddenly throbbing.

“Don’t be that way, D,” he said, a grin behind his words. His elbow dug into her ribs and she looked at him with his sunburn and small smattering of freckles. The headache subsided a bit at the familiarity in his skin. “I gotta go have a smoke or else I’ll die.”

“Like I said,” she said stubbornly, but she smiled regardless. “You’re such a drama queen.”

He gave a snort but didn’t answer. It was nice then, as they stepped outside, the dog off like a shot across the bridge. The sun was shimmering over the dark water and the surrounding pines waved gently as a stiff breeze blew along. Everything might have been destroyed, but it was good with the sky above them. The shivering sounds of the pine needles, the distant barking of Dogmeat as he no doubt killed something, the wet rushing of the river, it was so much _better_ than everything before crawling out of 101 had been. The wasteland might have been shit, but it was better than that huge dome with the fake stars.

“So,” Butch started as he lit a cigarette. “What are ya gonna do?”

“Oh, I thought I would go and harass Li some more, maybe eat a few of her “experiments," see if that gets a rise out of her,” she said airily. She watched him take a drag and wrinkled her nose but declined to comment.

He chuckled a bit at that, the both of them smiling at the sound. It was _easier_ being around Butch now, it wasn’t like when they were younger. They weren’t kids anymore, it didn’t _have_ to be like it had been back then.

“I’d pay to see that, but I’m bein’ serious here.” He blew the smoke into the breeze, the cloud quickly dissipating as it was wicked away.

“That’s a first.”

“Hey, I can be serious!”

“I’ve yet to see that happen.”

“Fine, well it’s happenin’ now,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Do ya wanna go look for this ‘bot, really?”

“Well…” She chewed on the inside of her cheek, flexing her hands out of habit. The want to help the android was right there next to the desire to get back at Zimmer and all of those slavers making money off of others’ suffering. Both were equally heavy on D’s shoulders, a weight pressing her in like a box until all she wanted to do was punch holes, fight back and have it actually _mean_ something. But was it because she wanted to help or wanted some kind of revenge for everything?

And that was the difference in her head, the part that screamed it wasn’t selflessness that drove her. What would other people think if they knew just how much vindication was under the matted curly hair and dark sunburn?

Then again, it didn’t really matter what other people thought of her. “Yeah, I wanna help him. Everything out here is terrible, it’s the small things that make it livable.”

He looked at her sideways and she feared he saw clean through her altruistic front. “That really it?”

She held it in for a second but this was _Butch_. While it was strange for her to realize that she cared what he thought of her, she knew him well enough to know he wouldn't care about what she said short of suggest blatant murder. “I wanna _fuck_ Zimmer _up_.” The admission felt good against her teeth, bold and completely true.

He crushed the cigarette against the railing, let the butt and the ashes fall into the river below. “Let’s go find your scrap heap,” he said, face splitting with that wicked grin she was growing to love.

* * *

 

Hardly anyone in the ship had anything to say past pointing them in the direction of Zimmer, saying he was here looking for an android. The robot part felt like it was burning a hole in D’s bag, and the longer they went without any headway, the more she just wanted to give it to Zimmer and tell him to get lost. Really, it felt like the best solution, the easiest, he leaves and no one gets hurt. Then she could just live out what was left of her day off and actually get enough sleep that night.

However nice that idea _sounded_ though, it was some sort of fun walking around looking with Butch. Hearing the rumors about the haunted broken bow, the screams and footsteps people heard, the mysterious disappearance of Pinkerton, it was _fun._ He cracked jokes and poked her in the ribs as they walked around, everything so easy and light. That grin was on his face the whole time, lips pulled into a smirk. The constant questions she had to ask everyone left her wanting to pull her hair out, but he made it _better_ , easier to deal with. He was good at being a distraction, wasn’t as useless as he seemed.

“We look there yet?” he asked when she was checking the time on her Pip-boy.

Dogmeat cocked his head at her as she bent up from petting him, shutting the light on her Pip-boy off. Her eyes were aching from the strain and it was only 7:30. “Saint Monica’s?” she asked tiredly.

“Yeah, church nuts always got an opinion on somethin’. Maybe this guy has the _right_ one.”

She grinned despite the dull throb behind her eyes. “Remember the chaplain in 101?”

“Don’t fuckin’ start, that lady was creepy as shit,” he muttered as they started for the church.

“She was just trying to save your soul, Butchie,” she went on, sidling up next to him and digging her elbow into his ribs. “Give you something else to do other than terrorize the other residents.”

He groaned, stepping through the door after the dog. “I can still hear her tellin’ me to burn my jacket an’ come to service more.”

D spotted Father Clifford and waved warmly at him before turning to Butch. “She’s been dead for two years, Butch, let it go,” she said quickly.

She caught his grumbled _Still hate her_ but ignored him. Father Clifford greeted her kindly, shaking her hand and asking if she would like to give a donation. Fishing for the caps she had from selling everything earlier, she handed him a few rolls. His smile was gentle as he thanked her, Butch snorting behind her. Ignoring him, she asked him about the android.

A bad feeling formed in the pit of her gut as she listened to him tell her less than nothing about it. He didn’t even try to direct her towards Zimmer like the rest of the ship had, instead saying that he would know it if anyone in his flock was doing something so dangerous. However, he would never tell a stranger if they were; the things his congregation confessed to him were confidential.

“I’m sorry I could not be more help,” he said solemnly. “If there is anything I can do to help you, please let me know. That Dr. Zimmer makes many on the ship anxious.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” she said quickly, turning to glance over at Butch. He was parked on one of the pews, absently rubbing Dogmeat’s ears while he flicked a cigarette in and out of the carton. Sighing, she turned to look back at Father Clifford. “I’d rather he weren’t on the ship either. Thank you anyway.”

“May Saint Monica bless you!” he called after her when she turned to gather Butch and the dog.

“Let’s get going,” Butch mumbled, shoving the cigarettes back in his pocket. “This place is givin’ me the creeps.”

“In a second, I just want to look around.” She bent to pet Dogmeat, his tongue lolling out to lick her hand.

“C’mon, D, he said he doesn’t know anythin’,” he hissed, leaning in close so Father Clifford couldn’t hear.

“ _Exactly,_ ” she snapped quietly. “Everyone else on the ship had _something_ to say and he didn’t have anything.”

His eyes flicked over to Clifford then back to her, quick and sharp. “Ya want me to distract him while you poke around, dontcha?”

“You’re smarter than you look, big guy,” she said with a sweet smile, patting him swiftly on the cheek.

“Whatever,” he mumbled as he straightened. The grin on her face grew more genuine when she saw him rubbing at the blush that was spreading over his skin.

“I’ll get you dinner after this,” she whispered, squeezing his arm.

He rolled his eyes but she caught the hint of a smile that cracked on his sunburnt face. “Ya got ten minutes, Poindexter.”

The way he walked towards Father Clifford could only be described as a swagger, his chest puffed out and head held up as he greeted him with an easy wave of his hand. She sighed as she watched, Dogmeat walking happily at his heels, and waited for Clifford to inevitably get distracted by the piece of work that was Butch Deloria before slinking around to his room in the back.

The door was unlocked, surprisingly. Though, it probably wasn’t all that surprising considering the time. He couldn’t spend all of his time in the church, the man _had_ to do other things. Plus, she couldn’t get the nagging idea that breaking into the room of a churchman would offend whatever god he served more than she liked to think.

The room was small and orderly, cramped and utterly dismal like the rest of the rooms in the ship were. The lights flickered and the air tasted stale, filtered too many times with the faintest hint of rust and more than a faint hint of dirty river water. His bed, a nightstand, a table with a chair, it was very put together, and it almost made it too easy for her to spot the cassette on his desk. With a small noise of triumph, she picked it up and peered closely at it, made out the words written on it. Grinning to herself, she slipped it into her pack right next to the brother she had found at Dr. Preston’s.

She stepped lightly out of the room and looked at Butch from behind Clifford. His eyes flicked over to her before looking down at Clifford and shrugging, walking unconcerned and his hands jammed into his pants pockets. Dogmeat clicked softly after him, Butch’s heavy footsteps so much louder than D’s.

“Such a troubled boy,” Clifford murmured when D tapped him on the shoulder.

“We all have our burdens,” she said absently as she pulled her bag around for the holotape. Holding it up between two fingers, she watched as his creased face paled. “Look familiar?”

He broke almost immediately, though he didn't seem afraid. The android deserved freedom, had a life, dreams, hope and want for more than what he was created to do. It was slavery to keep him the way he was and it went against everything he knew to let a soul suffer. So he'd helped.

And she got it. She got it _completely._ It was the same feeling she got around Paradise Falls, the same feeling she got when her and Butch saved all those prisoners in DC. It was the want for more than you'd been dealt, an obligation to give someone the chance you wished you'd been afforded. She got it _entirely_ , and she told him as much.

The tape was hers, in the end. After hearing she wasn't going to sell to Zimmer or out the entire Railroad, he eased up. If it meant getting the Commonwealth Doctor and his pet off the ship, he could give her this.

"So," Butch started as they walked out of Saint Monica's. "How'd it go?"

“He gave it all up,” she said, voice triumphant. Leaving out Clifford’s sincerity with his mission seemed to be the best thing to do around Butch.

He stepped through the door and waited for her while she closed it. “For a pastor, he’s shit about keeping secrets.”

“It worked out for me.” She shrugged, hiking her bag up her back as they moved towards the stairwell. After getting there and walking up them, she dragged her fingers along the railing. “Hey, Butch?”

“Hm?” he asked.

She looked over at him and saw him absently picking at a thread on his shirt. There was a slight tremor in his hands and her heart clenched a little at the sight. “What’d you ask Clifford, anyway?” She pushed the door outside open, Dogmeat off like a shot across the bridge. Poor guy probably hated being cooped up so much.

Butch tapped another cigarette out of his pack with a snort. “I asked ‘im if he knew that his guy was fuckin’ that bar kid.”

She wrinkled her nose at him, but a smile still spread out. “Please tell me you didn’t say it like _that_.”

“Ya bet your ass I did,” he said around the cigarette. He lit it, took a drag and blew it out, smoke catching the orange light from the setting sun. “It was great, it was like he was tryin’ to lecture me _an’_ his boy at the same time. I think he turned purple for a minute.”

“You’re _horrible_.”

“Hey, I did what ya asked, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she sighed, looking out over the railing for Dogmeat. She spotted him down by the water, too close to the breaking current. She whistled for him to come back, his ears pricking right up as he turned to look at her.

“Dog has better eyesight than you do,” Butch said smartly, nudging her with his elbow.

“He’s better at killing raiders than you are, champ.” She didn’t need to turn to see the grin that was surely on his face. He was a piece of shit and she could visualize it _perfectly_. The slightly split lip, the few freckles that crossed the boundary between chin and lip skin, the lopsided way it pulled over his teeth, he was _anything_ if not predictable.

“I’d bet I’m better conversation than your mutt is,” he said, completely unfazed. That was the really great thing about him now; it was like he hadn’t changed at all, he made her so _infuriated_ , but none of it stuck. He was horrible, but he wasn’t _bad_.

“Oh stop,” she said fondly, still watching the dog lope around by the bridge. “I’ve heard you baby-talk him.”

“You can’t prove anythin’, D.”

“Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, but she could hear the embarrassment in there. Easy, predictable Butch. Better than nothing, her only choice. That fact seemed pretty okay, right then.

He finished the cigarette and she called Dogmeat back. They didn’t speak much on their way to the Weatherly, but the silence was nice. Delia soaked in the ambient noises, the dull sound of the air filter, the heavy sounds of Butch’s shoes, the gently shifting _tinks_ of Dogmeat’s claws. As close as the walls were, it wasn’t too tight with someone else with her.

The room was still in the state they had left it, the blanket hanging off of one side of the bed. Sighing, D went to fix it, Dogmeat immediately jumping up on the mattress.

“He thinks it’s his bed,” Butch complained, coming to sit next to the dog.

“He can sleep wherever he wants.”

“He’s worse to sleep with than you are,” he grumbled, looking at the dog out of the corner of his eye.

She piled the covers on the bed, watching as Dogmeat proceeded to bury his face in the blanket. “I’ll see if Vera can get us another bed. Happy?”

Oh, the look he gave her was positively _wicked_. “If she gave us one you’d probably just miss me.”

“Miss getting kicked in my sleep?” she said, swallowing thickly as she turned away. The memory of waking up pressed against his back was still burned in her head, her skin flushing. “I’ll take my chances.”

She left to get something to eat at the marketplace, returning shortly with a few mirelurk cakes and a beer for Butch. The smirk that grew on her face when she opened the door and saw Butch playing with Dogmeat was small, but she tried to hide it out of respect for her _friend_. Butch seemed to think he still had an image to keep up, and even getting stabbed by a wasteland junkie couldn’t seem to beat it out of him.

“I got us mirelurk cakes,” she declared, dropping all of her items onto the bed.

Butch pushed the pile around, picking up two packs of Fancy Lads and a box of sugar bombs. His face brightened when he picked up a bottle. “You went all out, didn’t ya, D?”

“I guess you deserved a treat after I dragged you around all day,” she said with a shrug, opening a can of Cram for Dogmeat. The dog happily ate it, tail wagging as he snapped up the pink meat.

“It wasn’t so bad,” he replied. Though, he still quickly cracked the beer open and took a swig.

She sat down next to him and picked up one of the waters she had left in the room earlier. Her bag was on the floor, still full of what she hadn’t wanted to sell. It had the three whiskies she hadn’t been able to give to Preston, along with a few Nuka-Colas and the medical supplies she hadn’t wanted to part with. A month in the DC ruins had instilled an even stronger instinct to horde than she had originally thought.

“It could’ve been worse,” she admitted, tossing him his empty bag. He dropped it on the floor by his half of the bed. She picked up a mirelurk cake and took a bite, chewing for a moment before elbowing him. “Think about it though, we listen to the holotape he gave us and it should tell us exactly what we need to get Zimmer out.”

He shrugged, shoving an entire cake in his mouth. She grimaced as she watched him chew, that grin on his face as he swallowed it. “You’re disgusting.”

“You’re the one that keeps me around,” he said, taking another swig. “If ya wanted Zimmer off the ship so bad why didn’t ya just give him the ‘bot piece that bat handed us?”

She looked away for a moment, grateful for the burn on her skin to hide her blush. “I just think we should warn whoever the android is that someone is looking for him.” _I guess I wanted something to do_.

“You’re such a goodie-two-shoes,” he mumbled.

Her embarrassed blush seemed even more ridiculous after he spoke. Rolling her eyes, she chewed on her cake while she loaded in the holotape from Dr. Preston's room. It was nice to listen to, made her feel just a bit more for the android, but it wasn’t much to go on. Father Clifford’s, however, was _much_ more.

Butch let out a low whistle when she turned the tape off, the white noise from her Pip-boy hurting her ears. “This is some heavy shit, D.”

“Everyone said Pinkerton was dead,” she mused, snapping the casing shut. “That he was haunting the broken bow.” Her voice was curt, tight around the edges like she was holding something in between her words.

“I know that voice,” he said, wicked grin on his face again. “You wanna go check it out.”

She got off the bed and stretched, bending down to tighten her shoelaces. “Finish your dinner, Butchie, and leave anything that can't get wet. We’re going for a midnight swim.”

* * *

 

The broken bow was the front of the aircraft carrier that had managed to snap off and drop into the Potomac. It was huge and rusted out with scraps of metal still poking and threatening to stab anyone who came too close. A few vultures had nested in the higher reaches, clearly waiting for any unsuspecting creature to get caught in the tide of the river and washed ashore. It was a lovely sight, harsh in the shadows cast by the waning moon.

“You still remember how to swim?” D asked as she tied her hair out of her face. The marks her Pip-boy left on her skin still itched, but she ignored it, along with the light feeling of her empty arm.

“If I _remember_ ,” Butch said, watching her pin her bangs up. “You sink like a stone.”

She kicked at the dirt a few times before peeling her boots off and dropping them on the shore. Butch followed suit and soon they were just in their underclothes and pants. “You must be confusing me with the time you almost drowned back when the basement of the reactor flooded.”

He mumbled _smart ass_ before diving into the river, his form quickly swallowed by the dark water. He resurfaced a few moments later with a shout, pushing his hair out of his face. The water churned around him as he motioned for her to jump in.

Checking that their pile of shoes was safely hidden behind a rock, she jumped in, the water so startlingly cold her limbs froze for a single, terrifying second. It passed, and she soon surfaced without incident, kicking awkwardly to stay afloat. The two stimpaks she had managed to keep in her pants pocket floated awkwardly in the loose space.

They swam around for almost thirty minutes, searching for a way into the broken bow, before Butch found the door under the water. It was dark inside but not so bad that they couldn’t see and soon they were on somewhat level ground, gasping in the mediocre lighting.

“You good, Butch?” D asked, worry mounting as he coughed up a bit of water onto the rusted floor. It made a sickening splash as it hit the few inches of river water covering the floor.

He waved her off and wheezed a few more time before straightening, hair flat and stringy in the flickering fluorescents. “I’m great, just sucked in a little water back there.”

 _Maybe I should have left you behind with Dogmeat._ “Do you need a moment?”

“I’m good now,” he said with a shake of his head. Rolling his neck a few times, he massaged his shoulder. “Let’s just get going.”

She shrugged and they moved a bit further in. The entire place was sick with traps, one landmine exploding close enough that she could feel some of the shrapnel whip past her before Butch tugged her out of the way. Even then, it still felt like pieces of it were in her skin and her legs ached something terrible. The stuffy hull didn’t smell like stagnant water so much as smoke filled air and blood.

“Ya alright?” Butch asked quietly, startling her back into the sunken ship. His hand was on the top of her arm, holding her steady in the shallow water.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said slowly, shaking her hands out. The lack of weight from her missing gauntlet set her teeth on edge and she was suddenly _very_ aware that they hadn’t brought any weapons past two knives.

He stepped closer, his hand moving to turn her face. Looking at him, she could see the uncomfortable fear he held for her, the way he looked whenever grenades went off and he had glanced at her, face sick and worried for where she went at detonation. His nails scratched a little at her chin.

She jerked her head out of his hand, skin burning with embarrassment and shame. He stepped a bit closer, looking and poking at her. It took a moment for it to click in her head, but he was doing what she had done every time he’d been hurt before. She almost laughed at the whole situation, _Butch_ checking _her_ for wounds, but she was still too shaken. Pushing away the hand he was turning her shoulders with, she forced a watery smile for him.

“I said I was fine,” she said fondly, a hand squeezing his bicep for reassurance.

The water rippled as he shifted nervously, considering her and the remnants of the landmine floating in the water a few feet away. “If you say so,” he said eventually, looking away from her to the porthole in front of them.

She took a few deep breaths, willing her limbs to stop shaking. Smoke still clung to the corners of her eyes, blurred her vision and made it hard to blink away. Counting helped, focusing on the sound of the water, the flickering of the lights. Her toes felt strange standing on the old floor, the water smelled like brine and bacteria with an undertone of mold. If she concentrated hard enough she could hear something that sounded like an open air tank and a faint clicking.

“Do you hear that?” she asked softly, looking around towards the stairwell they had climbed up earlier.

“Hear what?” He looked around the other direction, towards the detonated mine.

She took a breath to answer, but all of the air was knocked out her violently and unexpectedly. A sharp pain resonated from her gut and her head smacked painfully into the floor, vision snapping out for a second at the impact. Dazed, she could hear the furious clicking of the mirelurk as it pulled its claws out of her and stepped on her leg, the pain shooting up the entire right half of her body. Behind it all she could hear Butch screaming and the dull _whump_ as he beat it with something, the sounds rushing and muffled through the water in her ears.

Standing up was nearly impossible and just as difficult as it had been when she blew herself up outside GNR. She managed, though, with a hand pressed over the gash in her gut the mirelurk had made. Her fingers on the other hand were clumsy and stiff as she fumbled at her belt for her combat knife. The greasy smell of blood hung heavily in air, thick and metallic, getting worse with each heartbeat. Head light from the blood loss, she finally grasped the hilt and lunged forward, tripping over her ripped-open leg.

Butch stumbled out of the way as she stabbed the mirelurk through the soft part of its face, the giant crab shrieking as she ripped it out and stuck it back it. Its claws clicked at her, grabbing her leg weakly before it collapsed into a shivering pile in the red water.

Delia looked at it for a moment as feeling came back and she registered how much everything _hurt_. Her leg gave out, landing her in the water for a moment before Butch pulled her up, his voice muffled as he felt around her pockets for the two stimpacks she had thought to bring.

He popped the cap off one and stabbed it in right above the hole in her gut, his hands pushing her own away as he tried to hold her closed. The next one went into her leg, right where the mirelurk had ripped her thigh open when it had stepped on her, the sharp stabs and rushes of relief making her shake in the freezing water. Her eyes slid shut in an attempt to not pass out from the blood loss, skin too cold and head pounding.

They stayed like that in the water, waiting for the stimpaks to work. They wouldn’t do much in way of closing the wounds, but they stopped most of the bleeding. Mind too foggy to count out the time as she usually did, D laid there while Butch cursed quietly to himself, his hands tearing strips out of her ripped up shirt to wrap around the gouges.

“D?” he asked, voice quiet and perhaps just the slightest bit terrified.

“Mm?” she groaned out, one eye opening. His face was above her, arms holding her upper body awkwardly out of the water.

“You ain’t dead, are ya?”

She chuckled at that and regretted it immediately. Wheezing sharply, she opened her mouth, found her throat too thick, cleared it, and tried again. “Don’t think so.”

“We gotta get ya out of here, we don’t have any other stimpaks and ya guts were just hangin’ out.” He tried lifting her onto her feet but she protested weakly at the disturbance.

“Can’t stand.”

“I’ll carry ya.” He tried again, getting her to sit up. Blood started seeping from her gut again, warm red staining the makeshift bandage he had tied around her midsection. “C’mon, D, gimme a break!”

Her head lolled back on her shoulders, a grin spreading over her face as her eyes slid shut again. “You can’t.”

He straightened up and hefted her over his shoulders, her wounds screaming in protest as he stumbled on the grated floor. He adjusted her, apologizing for the jostling before he took a few steps forward, mindful of the remaining traps. Every step upset the wrap around her stomach, pulled the gash open so fresh blood would seep out slowly. It left a pounding in her head, an ache from dehydration and shock that drowned out the sounds of the traps Butch deliberately set off so they didn’t get even more hurt than they already were. The warmth from the fire trap was nice on her skin, but the creeping suspicion that Butch’s frantic swearing meant he’d burned himself was in the back of her mind

The sounds of a hermetic lock disengaging reached her through the fog in her head. Distantly, she heard the clicking of a gun and Butch’s nasally shouting, but it was all background noise to her heart beat. _This is it_ , she thought to herself, surprisingly coherent and calm in the face of certain death. _I’m gonna fucking die and Butch is gonna have to take care of the dog by himself._

Abruptly, her clouded train of thought was cut short as Butch dumped her into a vacant chair. She groaned at the disturbance, a hand feeling limply around her gut and coming away wet.

“Damn thing did a number on her,” someone said. She opened her eyes slightly to look and found her vision clouded. There was the faded shape of a wrinkled old man through the haze.

“Just fix her an’ wake her up so she can talk. Then’ we can get outta here.” That one was Butch, terrible speech and everything.

“Fine, but then you _leave_.”

“Can’t be soon enough, Doc.”

It took twenty minutes for the jet and buffout Butch forced down her throat to work, and another fifteen after that for the shivering to subside enough for her to speak and for Pinkerton to patch up her gut with more gauze. With a fresh bandage around her midsection and thigh, she grimaced at Pinkerton as he handed her a musty old blanket. “So you don’t freeze to death,” he claimed, though the thing seemed more liable to give her an infection than keep her warm. Sick old bastard would probably get a kick out of that, too.

But she took it because Butch looked some kind of worried and it made her gut sick to think it was for her. _She_ was the one who worried, the one who put him back together after he pissed off raiders with the peashooter he called a gun. She should’ve taken more weapons, she should’ve worn something to protect her vitals, she should’ve, should’ve, _should’ve_ \--

“Where’s my knife?” she asked, voice too weak. She cleared her throat and pulled the blanket tightly around her shoulders.

“That mirelurk’s brain,” Butch said with a snort. His frame was tight as he stood closer, ease of posture too simple. She _knew_ him, had been around him for years, she could tell when he was pretending to not be fazed.

“I’ll have to get a new one,” she mumbled, fresh shivers shaking up her body. Her gut spasmed at them, pain shooting from the hole in her abdomen. Sweat dripped down the back of her neck as she held her breath, waiting for it to pass.

Butch was painfully silent as he waited those few tense moments, wound tighter than a piano chord. The room was too closed in and it smelled like river water, the whirring of monitors adding to the background noise of the fuzz in Delia’s head. Pinkerton huffed, annoyed that they were taking up his space and that they had had the audacity to demand help after his gauntlet of traps had nearly killed them both.

“Alright,” D finally sighed wishing she could stand without passing out. “Get over here and tell me about the android so I can leave.”

Pinkerton was an even bigger piece of work than Li had been. He was sour and old and _angry_. It was like it was all about nothing, raising the ship and building the city was worthless in the face of his self-imposed expulsion. He was mad that all of those scientists in the hydroponics lab had stopped kissing his ass and done something more worthwhile. His words sounded bitter and ineffectual, empty things from a crotchety old man who had secluded himself so no one could tell him he was wrong anymore. While she commiserated with him on Li’s attitude, the good doctor himself was somehow infinitely worse than the vegetable queen had been.

He told her everything she needed to know about the android and then some. His exploits seemed to be his favorite subject, the facial reconstruction of the android his crowning achievement. It was disconcerting, how easy it was to squeeze it out of him. Finding out the android was the police chief came as shock but he rolled right over it, bounding right into how impressively he had buried those old memories and gave him new ones. He seemed to be able to go on for hours about it all, and probably would’ve had she not snapped at him to just give her the recall code. He wrote it down, pressed it into her shaking hands, and then pointed at the door Butch had dragged her through earlier.

While trying to leave under her own willpower was a nice idea, she collapsed immediately upon trying to stand. The embarrassment at needing _Butch_ to carry her cut deep, but it lessened at the tension she felt in his shoulders as he hefted her out of the broken bow. Her head was too light and it felt like more of her blood was floating in the Potomac than her veins. Her current state of consciousness wasn’t even her own; she _knew_ as soon as the buffout and jet wore off she’d probably pass out again.

The mirelurk wounds only bled twice as Butch carried her to the medical bay in Rivet city. Once when he paused to grab their pile of shoes, and then again when he accidentally hit her on the lip of a porthole. It hadn’t really hurt and he didn’t apologize, but the tension in his shoulders and the way he ducked too low for the remaining doors said more than his _I’m sorry_ from the night before could have. Had she been in a better state, she might have entertained the idea that he was more worried than he looked, but the buffout was wearing off and she could feel everything grow fuzzier around the edges.

The medical bay was dark, but unlocked. Butch tossed her down onto a cot and screamed for the doc, her head pounding as his voice echoed around the metal walls. Preston came out in just his underwear, frazzled and tired looking. Butch gave him the situation and said to just put her back together, caps didn’t matter. Preston said something else to him but it was lost to the buzzing of the fluorescent lighting, the dull hum lulling D into closing her eyes, shivers starting again.

Preston’s hands came and pressed her down while Butch threw blankets over her, gloved hands pushing and pulling at the bandage around her gut. A few needles went into her hip while an inhaler was jammed past her lips, jet by the taste. _That_ woke her up enough for Preston to ask her her blood type and get a coherent response before she crashed back again, coming to after an entire bloodpack had been fed into her arm.

“Shit, she’s up,” Butch muttered somewhere to her left. A hand came and pressed her down as she tried to sit up, grip firm and familiar.

“That’s good, it’s good,” Preston said, his words accompanied by the returning feeling of her skin. Dully, she could feel the drag of a needle and thread through her skin, but she wasn’t conscious enough to feel the pain of it yet. “Hand me that med-x over there.”

Butch’s grumbling accompanied the sounds of nails scrabbling against metal. A sudden sharp prick in her thigh made her jump, Butch’s hand closing around her shoulder again to hold her still. Everything soon after that grew pleasantly hazy, consciousness fully returning to her.

“You know,” she started, lopsided grin spread over her face. “That was a _lot_ of fun.”

Butch snorted and ran a hand over his hair while Preston finished taping the bandages onto her. “It was fuckin’ somethin’, D.”

“No, no, it _was_ ,” she went on, trying to sit up. They let her. “You really stepped up to the plate, Butchie.”

“Jesus _Christ_ , D, ya almost fuckin’ died.” He groaned and dragged a hand down his face, but unexpected laughter suddenly bubbled up.

She grinned at him, limbs light and everything so _wonderful_. The air tasted like it was buzzing, her skin not prickling with anxiety and fear for once. Trepidation and fear for her father were a thousand miles away right then, the only thing her bubbling mind was able to focus on being the thin squeaky cot under her.

Preston finished patching her together, handed Butch three stimpaks, two for her and one for him to treat the nasty cut the mirelurk had made on his chest. They spoke more but D couldn’t really be bothered to pay attention right then. Butch slung her over his shoulders again, her body bouncing as he walked along the corridors of the ship. She couldn’t help laughing every time he bent under a door frame or walked sideways through a porthole so she didn’t get caught on anything. It was all so _funny_ , it was so ridiculous that he was carrying her and that he was worried and that he wasn’t being, well, _Butch_.

He kicked open the door to their room at the Weatherly and let her fall onto the mattress. Dogmeat bounded up immediately, licking her face and whining.

“I’m fine boy,” she slurred, awkwardly patting him. He gave a small bark and wiggled closer to her on the bed.

“Don’t listen to her,” Butch said as he rifled around through her pack. “She was a fuckin’ chew toy today.”

“Butchie carried me out of there,” she continued, holding Dogmeat’s face in her hands. “He’s not as bad as he seems.”

“That shit the doc gave you must’ve been strong,” Butch muttered. He pulled one of the unsold bottles of whiskey free with a small "ah-ha!" and took a swig, eyeing her as he did it.

Dogmeat’s tongue dragged over her face and she laughed at the dry feel of it. It turned into a cough as it upset her stitches but she couldn’t _feel_ it so could it really be that bad? “He gave me _two_ shots,” she said happily, rubbing her nose on the dog’s. _“Two!”_

Dogmeat barked at the happy tone of her voice, his tail thumping against the mattress. Butch groaned and took another drink, this one longer than the last. He brought it down when he was done, looked at her grinning lazily at him from the bed, and then took another swig with a groan. The bottle was almost half gone already and he screwed the cap on before tossing it onto the bed.

“Fucking Pinkerton wasn’t worth almost gettin’ eaten,” he muttered. He stretched before fishing a fresh shirt out of the pack on the floor and laid it out next to her on the bed.

She blew the hairs that had come out of her ponytail away from her face. “He totally was! I learned all about Rivet City and then we can tell Harkness _all_ about it tomorrow.” She pulled Dogmeat close again, his tags jingling as she buried her hands in his hackles.

He pulled his shirt off and tossed it down, the piece more holes and stains than anything. “You’re not gonna even remember this when you wake up, D.”

“I _so_ will,” she huffed, falling back onto the pillows awkwardly. She watched him pick up the new shirt and start shrugging it on, her face screwing up as he pulled it over his arms. “We match now,” she declared, lifting an unsteady hand and pointing at his stomach.

He looked at her over the edge of the shirt, an eyebrow cocked. “S’cuse me?”

“Now I have one too.” She lightly patted the bandage on her gut and then pointed to him again, at the jagged scar he’d gotten a month ago outside of Megaton.

He pulled the shirt off and looked down, a broken grin on his face as he looked where she was pointing. “Shit, D, yours is gonna be so much fuckin’ bigger.”

“I think you mean _cooler_.”

His face pulled up into that easy grin he always wore but it was so much more _genuine_ right then. “I always knew chicks went nuts over scars. Didn’t think that meant it was over their _own_ scars,” he said as he finally pulled the shirt all the way on.

“And muscles,” she said, trying to pull herself closer to his side of the bed. “Girls love their muscles.”

“You’ve got that covered,” he muttered, sitting down. “Stop squirmin’, you’ll rip ya stitches out.”

“I can _handle_ it,” she huffed. Still, a cold sweat had broken on her chest, her head too light from the blood loss and med-x.

“Like _shit_ ya can, D.”

“You’re being such an ass.” She leaned back and crossed her arms with a pout.

He looked at her for a second before sighing and scooting closer. Dogmeat hopped up and immediately draped himself over the both of them. Butch made a noise but still scratched at the dog’s ears, much to Delia’s delight. “Fine,” he muttered, coming a bit closer at her insistence. “Happy?”

She hummed an affirmative in the back of her throat, her hand going up to pat at his face. “I wanna say thanks.”

He snorted. “Ain’t like I had much of a choice.” Still, though, he didn’t turn away, instead bringing a hand up to take hers off his face and placed it on her stomach. It was all surprisingly gentle for Butch.

“No, c’mon, just let me say it,” she groaned. She propped herself up on her elbow and looked at him, vision not so good as exhaustion was setting in.

“Ya already said thanks.”

“I want to say _more_.” And she really did, but two syringes of med-x should’ve been enough to put her to sleep. Moira messing her up might as well be good for something.

“Like what?” he asked, turning to look down at the dog. He scratched quietly at his ears, Dogmeat whuffing in approval.

Considering him for a moment, she leaned forward and awkwardly wrapped an arm around him. For a single solitary second, she felt old awkward apprehension flare up as he remained stiff. Dimly, she remembered him hugging her outside of the lab the night before and the almost gentle way he had spoken to her. Through the haze of medication in her skull everything wasn’t as dire as it felt, she hadn’t almost been eviscerated by a mirelurk and Butch hadn’t had to carry her through a gauntlet of traps. He wasn’t supposed to be _worried_ for her.

But then he loosened up and pulled her into the hug so it was less upsetting on her stitches. The hug wasn’t tight and it didn’t feel entirely sincere, but he still made the effort. That was all she needed before she was sighing into it, eyes closed with a dopey grin on her face. He was warm and close and _safe_ , actually someone she could half-rely on out here. That was worth more than she could ever think of, sober or otherwise.

“Thanks for savin’ me,” she murmured into his shirt. Thankfully, it didn’t smell like river water.

“I’m glad ya ain’t dead,” he mumbled, words so quiet she almost didn’t hear them but they rang with sincerity. She squeezed him more tightly for a second before relaxing and sliding back into laying down.

She let out a giggle, looking up at the plated ceiling.

 _“Fuck,”_ he swore quietly, a shaking hand picking up the whiskey bottle and unscrewing it. “Shit, fuck, god _damn_.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to have feelings every now and then,” she said mildly. Her eyes slid shut, fatigue bearing down on her body and making her feel boneless.

“I don’t got feelings,” he muttered before taking a drink.

“Your secret’s safe with me, _Butchie_.”

The next words out of his mouth were too complex for her right then, but she managed to make out a small assortment of swears. Her peals of laughter rang hollowly around the small room as he yelled at her to stop, she’d rip open her stitches and he didn’t want to have her bleed all over this shirt too. She calmed down at his request, but it didn’t stop the smile from forming on her face. He could deny it all he wanted, but she _knew_ he cared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow and here it is. Sorry it took so long to update, but rest assured we are now back in business. I just took some time off to write a dragon age fic and this chapter would've been out a few days sooner, but then the E3 conference happened and I've been playing fallout shelter since then.
> 
> Also, [here is the blog](http://darlingdelia.tumblr.com/). We have some pics up, a fanmix, and are open to any and all asks!
> 
> PS: I changed the pictures in all the chapters save 3 to new ones. I uploaded and changed them with this chapter, and I would love it if you went and checked them out!


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